Musings from the Emerald Isle

After a very stressful week of having essentially no internet connection*, I find myself happily situated in my old friend Ro's tech-friendly home. 

(Thank You, Lord, for internet. I had no idea how web-dependent I'd become.  I feel almost as if food and water had been restored to me after a long fast.)  

I am in Ireland.  

The country of my mom's family origin.  

The obsession of my youth.  

A long-held dream is being fulfilled in this trip. You only have to look at my bookshelves to understand how deeply I've longed to see this place; with titles like McCullough's Wars of the Irish Kings or the more well-known Irisih Fairy and Folk Tales from the incomprable Yeats, the Rachel-brain of my early adulthood was fed on the history and lore of Ireland. I lived my Irish ancestory for about three years.

Though I've become more pragmatic in my 30s than I was a decade ago, I still allowed myself to go there emotionally on the ferry over from Holyhead. I just thought...just felt...what was it like for my ancestors 150 years ago?  The boldness of leaving your homeland for a country across the sea was no small thing back in those days.  Did they leave because of English oppression?  Did they leave because of one of the potato famines?  Did they leave to be near friends and family who had already left because of famine or oppression?  I imagined some great-great-grandmother finding her sea-legs on the deck of a wooden vessel, gettting salt-whipped from the ocean as she leaned over the side of the boat railing to look at the wake left by this monstrous ship carrying her away from her homeland.  Was she poor?  Was she more excited than sad? More scared than excited?  I tried to enter into her emotion, succeeding only for brief half-seconds -- those snatches of time inbetween the snapping of photos and the curling of excited toes.  I was on the Irish Sea, after all. I couldn't allow myself too much nostalgia or I'd miss my own 21st century experiences.

Aside from reincarnating my great-great-grandmother's journey (albeit, on a different body of water), I very much wanted to throw myself into the sea -- to give myself up to the waves and mingle with the history of my people.  (In the end I didn't take the plunge; perhaps what stopped me was not wanting to ruin my smart phone, but we'll never really know.)  I also allowed myself to believe in mermaids during my three hour tour, because surely if they exist anywhere it'll be off the coast of Ireland?

After safely landing and waiting ages for my luggage (and supressing the very great urge to scream "I'M IN IRELAND!!!!!  WOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"), I finally made it outside to Ronan.  How very dear to see him!  He was one of my dorm mates in France, which is how I know him, and until yesterday I hadn't seen him in nearly a decade.  When we were "at Uni" he used to come into my room at all hours of the night to argue philosophy -- hours in which I sorely wanted to sleep but hadn't the heart to kick him out. I love his house, I love his wife, I love his dogs, and I am loving being here.  Tonight we're running off to go see a more picturesque part of Ireland.  Photographic evidence of this journey will be forthcoming upon my return to my native land, but for now, I wish you all well and hope your week is turning out as fabulously as mine.

*My friends in England turn their internet off and unplug it! during the day.  They only turn it on for about 20 minutes to read and return emails right before they go to bed.  It's...killing...me...

Favorite Smells

Summer camp
and Aunt Carol's house
and the shampoo I used when I lived in France.

One Year Anniversary

One year ago today, about this time, I was going under anesthesia.  I was shaking-nervous and my pre-op nurse who was as old as the hills (or older) didn't make matters any better; her eyesight was so bad she pulled out a magnifying glass to fill out my paperwork, then immediately afterward put the magnifying glass down and was like, "Now let's start your IV!"  After getting horribly bruised I requested she find someone else to to do it.  Then she gave me narcotics after I told her they do bad things to me, and I thought I was going to die before I even got to the operating table.  Then she used latex even after I told her I was allergic...

But enough amusing tangent.  This post isn't about Nurse Ratched.  This post is about a year.  A year of being pain-free. I called Bekah this morning to thank her for doing my fundraiser, then unexpectedly began crying on the phone.  (How can I ever thank her enough for doing that?) When I think about the decade and a half leading up to surgery...when I think of all the pain I pushed through, sometimes ignoring, sometimes trying to fix...when I think of the despair I warded off for 10 years that finally caught up with me in 2011...when I think of all these things, I don't know how I ever got through my 20s.  I actually broke down crying really bad yesterday thinking about it; God, I never want to go back to that place.  I don't know how I did it; I could never do it again.  I am so terribly, terribly grateful not to be sick like that anymore.  The annoying little maintenances, like not eating gluten or like going to PT, are small potatoes compared with the pain and dread and hopelessness I suffered (and tried to ignore) for so long.

I've been realizing something else this summer: I no longer know myself.  I think I mentioned in a recent post that my mood is far more stable than it ever was. This is because my hormones are balanced since I no longer have a thousand little estrogen-makers living on a diseased colon. I don't freak out about things like I once did, I don't get angry as quickly, and I'm (generally) in a happy mood.  I think...all that energy I used controlling my moods and reactions - what can I do with that now?  I want to grow into this healthier me; I want to live well and do things well and feel things well. There are differences in my life that some would consider minute which are, in fact, huge.  Like, I can go months without journaling; I used to not be able to go half a week without it.   It may not seem like much to a non-journaler, but that's how I used to process my life.  I...I don't know, I somehow don't seem to need it anymore.  Who is this new me?  How do I interact with myself?  How do I interact with God?  With others?  With my family?  I don't know yet.  With only a year in this new body, I haven't had time to figure it out.

Yet I press on, full of gratefulness to God, my doctor, and everyone who helped me through surgery via prayers, money, and emotional support.  It has been a good year.  I look forward to the years to come.

------

I got this tiny little potted rosebush a year ago today:

She is now over three feet tall!

And We Change (part deux)

Makeup came up in convo today.  If you've known me for any length of time you know I don't like makeup because I feel it's just one more way for women to look at themselves every morning and say, "I'm not good enough, so I'm gonna hide mysefl."

(I know, I know, makeup can be fun, blah, blah, yeah.  I know.)

Anyway.  I used to be so vehement about this.  I mean, I would get really bothered by people depending on their makeup.  It wasn't just, "I don't wear it because I don't feel I need to change myself to fit into some unattainable standard of beauty," it was, "I don't wear it because of reasons stated above, AND YOU SHOULDN'T WEAR IT EITHER!  LET'S BURN OUR BRAS!  LET'S MARCH ON D.C.! WOMEN, UNITE!"

Despite my former extremism, today as I sat with a group of people I've only known for six weeks the topic of makeup came up and I realized three things:

1. I still don't wear makeup and still for the same reasons, but I'm now largely ambivalent about it. 
2. I haven't talked about this in probably three years.
3. I didn't want to talk about it today. 

How ashamed 21-year-old Rachel would be of 31-year-old Rachel!  I can hear what she would say: Don't you have any convictions, you washed up old sell-out?? Then she would proceed to present her argument on women's rights and equality and objectification and hound me until I conceded.

Wow.

I'm so glad to be old.  But more than that, I'm glad to be healthy.  I think I posted this somewhere (though I took a lot of my endo posts down when I was job hunting): surgery did wonders for my hormones. All those little pinprick points of endometriosis were creating excess estrogen in my body, which made my emotional state extreme every single day of my life.  Post-surgery when I had my first period I also had my first PMS.  I'd never had PMS before; everyday had been PMS before surgery.  My whole like - my whole life - my emotions were strong and tended predominantly toward the negative.  In hindsight, I think I was depressed for the entire decade of my 20s.  Life was extreme and induced extreme reactions.  Nothing was "meh"; everything - including something as minor as makeup - needed a stance, an opinion, an argument, a thesis, a campaign.

Thank You, Lord, those days are behind me.  No wonder I'm exhausted. 

Baba W

She was so much older than my grandmothers, because my best friend's parents were so much older than my parents.  But with the age, perhaps, came the wisdom. 

And peace.
She was peace, personified.
She was joy.
She was graciousness.

How can I describe her?  How can I give you a taste of this beautiful slice of my life? A person wanted to be around Baba, felt better around Baba, couldn't help loving Baba. Baba was so much at rest with who she was and what the world was. She is what comes to my mind when I think about who I want to be. I miss her rolling Russian accent. I miss hearing her pray in her native language. I miss her roses and her back house and her kitchen and the little jar of candy on the coffee table. I'm glad I knew her, and grateful that her memory is almost as strong and fresh as her presence even years after her passing.  It...she...reminds me to hold on to peace and let myself give grace.

God, that I might be like Baba.

Storage

Well, it's happening. The infamous storage unit in Oregon is being emptied and its contents reunited with their owner.  The truck won't get to me for another two weeks, but two weeks is a short wait when I haven't seen my things in three years.

(Things.  In French, directly translated, les choses.  I said this a lot in France, because I say it a lot in English.  Months and months into my stay a friend finally said, "Rachel, we just don't say les choses like you're using it.  Say, maybe, mes affaires instead."  Way to teach me not to be so vague, Cyril.  Your voice will be in my head til I die, correcting me every time I use the word "things." Kudos.)

So tonight I am listening to All Good Things Come From the Desert and rearranging mes affaires yet again, anticipating the tight squeeze it'll be once my second half arrives.  Half my wardrobe.  My favorite books, to be added to the almost ceiling-high stack in my closet now.  Dishes I still won't need for a while.  A bike.  My desk - that last one so important and greatly missed these passing years, but I find it a bit painful to think about fitting it into a crowded bedroom that already has to make room for my niece's toys, a bed, and two dressers.

My things.  Mes choses.  Mes Affaires.

And Christopher Miner.

The rearranging, the anticipation, the music...I feel like I'm 26 again.  I feel like I'm neurotically in like with T.J. and discontent with my life.  It's funny how just the right combination of things can throw you back like that.  I'm not discontent, and I no longer like T.J., and I'm certainly not 26.  But music can rub on your heart scars sometimes, pulling them just the right way to remind you there was once a wound.  It's not bad.  Sometimes it's nice to remember what life was, even to enter the emotion for a second, like watching a sappy movie.

Did you now scar tissue can have its own blood supply?  Scar tissue is not, as so many assume, dead tissue, but living. That's why its still sensitive sometimes. But the little pinching reminders are good.  They say, "This is what your life has been; this is what you've been through.  Remember, and be grateful.  Embrace the growth."

I'm baaaaaaack!

Well my dears, I privatized for a while and thought about deleting, but here I am again.  I like this outlet.  I like looking back at old posts and remembering my life.  It is good.

You know what else is good?  My life.  I've had a good life.  I've lived, and that has made it good.  Kierkegaard talks a lot about venturing and risk; I think, as a young man, he did not risk enough in life and later regretted it.  I, however, am a master at risk (with both success and failure) and have no regrets.  (Well, very few, and the ones I do have would be silly to most people.)  I don't think you can live with regret and live with heart at the same time.  Risk and venture are part of life and we can only work with what's been built before.  So if I step out and risk something and it fails, what have I lost?  Nothing.  I have gained everything.  I have gained knowledge from my failure, I have gained boldness by learning how to fail.  I have been broken of perfectionism because failure has taught me I am imperfect.  I've learned to give grace to others in their failures, and I've learned to let go of the ideal for the sake of the real. 

I love risk and I love failure.  Because of this, looking back, I love the life I have thus-far lived. Even in the hard times (Endo!) I have lived fully, and to die today would be no loss.  What a lovely life I have been given.  How beautiful life is. I am content.

(Of course I must acknowledge my parents, cause they never held me back with fear or caution.  This is a great rarity among parents, I think, and I am blessed.)

.:First day of the new year:.

Friends for 27 years!

Perfect sunset, January 1, 2013

Sunset at Newport Beach

When the Frenchie flew in

he brought with him
French macaroons
and French cheese
and French wine.

And the American was well-pleased.

(Picture evidence to follow.)

How Grandma Lois Married an Abusive Man and Saved the Lives of His 3 Children; also entitled, "That one time I saw Grandma cry"

Four generations: Mom, Sister, niece, Grandma Lois

My grandpa died when my mom was 3 years old.  This was always a great tragedy to me, as I am incredibly nostalgic and fiercely in love with my family.  (Let's ignore that I wouldn't have been born if he'd lived...that's a moot point and a long story.)  Yet in keeping with "all things working together for good", my grandma remarried when Mom was 8.  His name was George.  Georgie Pordgie. A living nightmare.

He'd killed his first wife and her father, though he never got caught for it.  We know he did because he tried to kill my grandmother in the same way they'd died.  He tried multiple times.  Thankfully my grandma had a crazy mother and knew how to deal with insanity - she simply refused to die.

But she would leave.  After 4 years of terror and tantrums (the tantrums, of course, on George's part) Grandma left.  But she couldn't just escape into the night, no. You see, George the sadist had 3 daughters by his first wife.  Grandma Lois couldn't leave them to be beaten and berated til death or majority did them part.  She determined to get them out too.  The problem was, things didn't work in the 60s the way they work today - no matter how many times George's abuse was reported, the children were not taken away and the man was not imprisoned. There was only one thing left to do: buy him off.

The house was  in Grandma's name. When George denied her custody of his children, she offered him half the proceeds of the sale of the house.  By some great miracle (there IS a God), he agreed, on the stipulation that they go to a girls' home rather than be given to her.  She said yes, found them a good home in Iowa, and put them on a plane.  To this day she'll say letting them go was one of the hardest things she ever did, but she had to do it to get them away from George.  The girls were raised in Iowa and ended up staying there.  Though I heard the stories my whole life, I never met them.

Two weeks ago my cousin Desiree got married.  Desiree is the daughter of my mother's half sister Dawna - the only child Grandma Lois and George had together.  The oldest of George's daughters came out for the wedding, since Desiree is technically her blood niece.  Meeting her was kind of like meeting my dead grandfather: a legendary creature from my mother's past come alive again.  All the old stories were dredged up, but this time I got to hear them from Sandy's perspective too.  Apparently he'd tried to kill her the same way he'd killed her mother.  To an abused 9-year-old in the 1960s, Grandma's second marriage is the best thing that could have happened. She calls Grandma "Mama" - strange and childlike and affectionate to my ears since my mom and aunties and uncle just call her "Mom".

I went with Grandma and Aunt Brenda and Aunt Carol the day Sandy was dropped off to the airport cause, like I said, I'm terribly nostalgic.  These family interactions mean something to me; the stories are buried in the vaults of my heart. I waited in the running car as I watched the four of them disappear around a corner to see Sandy safely off.  When my aunties and grandma came back they were crying - all three.  As Sandy said goodbye she had clutched them tightly, crying, and saying, "You saved my life."

It was the only time I've ever seen my grandmother cry.

End of year challenge:

to see how long I can go without saying something negative.  And to not be boring when not saying something negative. (Sarcasm is so fun!)

Healing, Healed

Me: I'm not in pain, I'm just kind of uncomfortable and annoyed.
Hannah: That's called a normal period.

Cool at night.

This is one of my favorite things about California:
north to south,
no matter how hot the day,
the nights always bring relief.