It's probably nothing

It’s hard to feel OK when you have an ultrasound wand probing certain private areas of your anatomy, searching for something that’s probably nothing. You lie there staring at the darkened ceiling, where some conscientious but insensitive clinic employee placed a horrible poster of a pile of frogs with big buggy red eyes, and they are all staring down at you, watching you squirm.

Multiple frogs, multiple cells, reproducing like -- frogs -- malignant, and metastasizing! The anxiety builds to a crescendo. Out comes one tear, and then another, it wants to rain, but your eyes squeeze tight.

You try to hide the fact that you are scared to death. You try to find something to hold on to, something to stabilize things. There's only the stupid hospital gown wadded up in your fists.

Then it's over and the very nice attendant tells you that the doctors will appraise the images and you'll be notified of the results in a few days.

The phone rings, and it's the doctor. The instant you hear her voice you remember she said that if everything were OK the clinic would send a letter, but if they found something, she’d call.

So there it is. Now you have to go in for more tests. But try not to panic, because it’s probably nothing.

Hearing the “C” word is a punch in the gut. It deploys the air bag between the reality that is your life up until that point and the concrete pylon of an illness that is impossible to steer around. For a second there is hyper reality, then mist. When the mist clears the world is a different place altogether, complete with hospital waiting rooms, solemn doctors mumbling quietly as they consult over images of your internal organs, and big decisions.

But until you know for sure, you have to add; “It’s probably nothing” every time you speak about it -- because you don’t want to alarm anyone unnecessarily.

The fact is you are alarmed. You are VERY alarmed! There is a clanging bell reverberating in your skull 24 hours a day. Your eyes are wide open with fear. Your mouth is dry and cottony. Your conversation is disjointed, truncated by a mind preoccupied and exhausted.

You feel so crazy, because after all, it’s probably nothing.

stage fright

Even though my doctor told me not to sing until my vocal chords heal, I just had to sing a rendition of Elvis Costello’s ballad Alison for my boss’s going away party last week. It was a tribute I could not forgo, no matter how impaired my vocal.

I was in the midst of a bad cold with lots of congestion in the week leading up to the performance -- just a few days before I had no voice at all. Which meant I had to rely heavily on my breath for projection of the notes and words. This turned out to be not such a bad thing.

Getting up on stage was something else again. Boy do I have stage fright. I’m so scared I physically shake, my palms sweat, and my heart races. I think I’m scared of being judged harshly. Which reveals, I think, that I must tend to judge others very harshly. Otherwise, why would I be so scared?

One thing that trying to overcome stage fright does do – that to me is totally unexpected – it makes me less judgmental! Every time I go up and stand before a mass of people and bare my soul, and ultimately screw it up, it makes me less apt to judge other people unduly. It gives me empathy. It also makes me totally happy.

I’m not sure why going up on stage and laying it all out there makes me so happy. Maybe because it is so “in the moment”, or maybe because each time I do it I feel I have overcome such a great barrier in my own psychic pathology that I feel like Rocky or something.

Whatever the reason, it is cathartic. It suspends time and turmoil, treading into that floating consciousness somewhere between my feet on the stage and my head floating out to Jupiter. On the backbeat of course! Leaving every earthly care somewhere down along the curb and gutter.

I closed my eyes and left the room while I stood there on stage. Behind my eyelids I found an ecstatic phantasm of presence in the absence. My heart slowed to the beat of the music, and I waited for my turn of the rope and jumped in. I sang my heart out.

I belted every line. I hit those notes out to the audience like a major league batter. And it seemed every one was at least a base hit. It was like I grew and grew and grew, until I was too big for the room. I expanded to the ceiling and out into the crowd. What a feeling!

Then when the song ended, I landed. I shrunk back to normal size and fumbled my way back into the tables and chairs, tinkling glass, and the drone of the gossiping crowd. Did they applaud? I haven’t any idea. I was not in the room.

My boss liked it though. That was enough.
Farewell friend, and good luck.

Mother's Day

My mom fell and cut her head open at the nursing home last week. The person in charge of that stuff called me and left a message on my phone at work. She wanted me to call her back. The only problem was, when she said the number, she garbled the last two digits in the phone number, making a return call impossible.

When I got to work this morning, she had left another message. That made me happy, I thought I’d be able to call her back! But she garbled the same two digits of the number and I still was unable to call back.

The guilt factor concerning my mother is very high and rising every moment. I haven’t been to see her since before I got this bad cold on Tuesday the 10th of April – it’s now the 25th. Being sick has drained me real bad -- and I really wouldn’t want her to catch it. Add to that fact, that my boss at work has left for a great new job and my work future is uncertain. Not to mention that the doctor wants to have me checked for uterine cancer. Oh, and did I mention menopause?

Crummy things seem to be piling up. And it feels more like piling on. Some days I don’t know if I can go on -- the foot, the throat, the female organs, the hormones, the mom, the boss, the job (not to mention the things I’m not mentioning!) -- but what choice do I have?

My youngest son turned 5 years old yesterday. That was big. He was so excited. He bounced around the room just like Tigger from the Pooh books. And even though we kept it simple, he was elated. That kid is some kind of blessing. He’s such a bright beacon. He warms the cockles of my heart (whatever those are).

I was 43 when he was born. It didn’t seem to be such a feat at the time, but now as he grows I’m learning that physically I am just not up to the task sometimes. I hope I don’t leave him before he grows up. But who has that choice anyway? We do what we can to try to stay healthy, and we fail miserably. Then we try again, and we fail again. The most we can hope for is a net success as time goes by.

My oldest son turns 18 on Saturday. He is so beautiful. He is awesome -- in every sense of the word. He brings me great joy and also great fear. I so want his life to be better than mine. Not due to material possessions, but due to better choices. I hope I have given him some good tools for his earthly toolbox to help him build, and as needed, repair his life.

Like I said, my mom fell and cracked her head open at the nursing home. It took 13 staples to put her back together. The fact that I haven’t been to see her for two weeks is starting to dangle over my neck like a guillotine. She’s my mother after all. I’m sure they think I’m indifferent to the whole thing since I haven’t called them back. I wish they knew that I only have the area code and the first 5 digits of the phone number.

Visiting my mother is somewhat like mounting the executioner’s block. It’s a very solemn affair -- she’s the one with the axe and hood. I am the one who will soon be fragmented, fractured, and succumb. So with each day I fail to visit her, the blade rises, and the anxiety grows – I both detest and desire an audience with her. It’s really quite sick -- there are not enough staples to fix what's broken in me -- but it is non-negotiable, she’s my mother.

Maybe the number is in the book.

vocal theropy

In addition to everything else, I have a condition known to doctors as GERDS. Gastro esophageal reflux disease. Acid reflux. Symptoms of this being that I've a sore throat all of the time. In addition my vocal chords are swollen, so my voice becomes weak and I get hoarse very easily.

In order to help strengthen my voice I've been assigned a vocal therapy doctor. If you were to ask me what she looked like, I would have to say my first impression is of a young Mrs. Claus. She has clear shiny skin, plump, rosey cheeks, and light complexion all around. She seems to be about 28 but is a bona fide PhD and very good at what she does, so I suspect she is older than 28, maybe a young looking 33. Never the less, she has a gentle build. Quite heavy, as am I, but you don't get that impression from her, she doesn't "seem" that fat. Maybe it's the lab coat. But I notice she has some weight because when we do the exercises I have to look at her abdomen to see the technique she is teaching and there is a considerable amount of padding there. Despite this, I am for some reason not comfortable describing her as a large woman. She just doesn't seem that big. Her voice is light and feathery. It rides on her breath and floats around you head. She has a tendency to tilt her head back and look down her nose at you.

Maybe I just perceive this because these vocal therapy sessions have been closer to psychotherapy sessions. Getting to the bottom of my vocal problems ostensibly lies in getting to the bottom of my emotional problems. My psyche. My apoplectic, unanswered neurosis. She doesn't have enough time! But she pops some terse observations in just for good measure.

On the first appointment she said to me; "I'm worried about your mental state, you seem to be very anxious. You have issues with your singing. You identify with it too much. Your singing isn't who you are, it is just a way you can express who you are." That caught me by surprise; I thought this was voice therapy. Maybe she just likes to tease the tears out of people. But I held back. Then she gave me some exercises to practice.

On the second appointment she said to me; "You have to throw your desire to sing away. You must let it go, or you won't have it. And you must be willing to see your life without your voice. Find other forms of expression. Let your voice go." (Who is this person? Yoda!)

I had to sit back a bit. She is talking about my singing voice right? The thing I do every minute of every day. Singing, my primary form of self-indulgence. How fearful it was to think of my life without singing going on in my head all the time. I began to cry. Not gushing, but just enough fear surfaced to pop a flow of tears from my ever-widening ducts. She had struck a chord. She had grabbed the dagger, flexed back her arm and set the thing directly into my heart. She seemed sadistically satisfied. Then she gave me some new exercises to practice.

On the third appointment she said to me; "You talk too much and don't say anything. You have to be more deliberate. You have to learn to use your instrument sparingly. You will use it up too soon the way you go at it. And, your voice is coming straight from your vocal folds, not your breath as it should." Then she talked to me about breathing, and gave me some more exercises.

So she was going to show me how to breathe? Hadn't I been doing that already? Wouldn't I be dead if I couldn't breathe?

Well, you know how we women suck in our bellies all the time to try to look 10 pounds thinner? What's the point when you're 250 pounds! But for some reason I still do it. And I found out that doesn't help your breath so much. She taught me to open up my middle section and let the air get down low into my diaphragm area. Then to push up and send the breath out, up the air pipe, past the vocal folds, onto the roof of my mouth, and past my upper teeth into the world. She had me add a sound to it and wanted me to feel the vibration just behind my upper front teeth. Resonance, she called it. It was like saying OM! And we repeated it over and over until I began to get it working more naturally. By that time I had a buzz and was feeling very euphoric, having just meditated. It helped me calm down. I could feel my center for a few seconds. And within that center there was no fear. What a relief!

I liked that. And even though she kind of pissed me off with the remark about my talking, she was redeemed with the teaching of the breath. Now I am practicing daily, for varying lengths of time. Slowly expanding in and down and then slowly contracting up and out.

Learning how to breathe.

painting

Sometimes there's a color all over your walls that's just not reflecting the real you. You look at the walls and you think; "This is just too bright, it's really not me anymore. What was I thinking when I painted them this color!" So you decide to cover over the bad color choice and put up something that really reflects who you are.

Choosing that color isn't always so simple. Do you want a warm or cool hue? Dark tone or light tint? Flat, Satin, Semi-gloss, or Enamel? Maybe you want a glaze over the primary color with a little rag rolling. It's all possible with a little patience and mental discipline. So you go to the hardware store and order the paint, custom mixed, just for your new look! Then you check it and if it looks OK, you cart it home and prepare to brush it on.

It's one thing to choose a new color, and it's another to actually apply it to the walls. Sometimes the walls are so full of dirt and grime you have to go at it with a scrubber to get all the scum to come off so the new paint will actually stick! The wall has dings and dents that you have to carefully cover with spackle, smooth, sand and prime before you can apply the new paint. In some places, especially the corners, there are cobwebs and an occasional spider lurking therein.

One coat is seldom adequate, most times two is needed, once in a while it takes three. But there are always areas you just can't cover up no matter how many coats of paint you put over them. Those just become part of the wall-scape and you have to learn to love them and live with them. Or better yet, work around them and integrate them into the overall look of the room!

Now before all this rejuvenation can take place there are obstacles you need to deal with that are in the room itself. You have to try to move the furniture away from the walls and find a way to cover it so it doesn't get all full of drips and splatters. This maneuver presents a new set of problems. It reveals all the clutter you've stowed away in all the little cubbie holes that makes the furniture so heavy you can't possibly move it away from the wall until you remove the excess.

And if you decide not to move that really heavy piece and just paint up to the edges, you will always know that the old color still exists behind that huge hutch or entertainment center, and someday, it will have to be moved revealing that old unsightly patch of wall. Who knows what could be festering behind that old over-stuffed hutch anyway, better to get in there and deal with it now before it grows unmanageable.

When all the obstacles are overcome, what a great feeling to have nice new walls surrounding you. A new perspective on the world, a new vantage point to observe your life. And now the spiders can move back in.