Last Friday I saw parts of Oprah.  It was a rerun from the previous summer featuring a family coming home from a wedding in a limo which was struck head-on by a drunk driver.  Their little 7 year old daughter was killed.  The theme, of course, was not to drink even one drink and drive.  I was struck by something the parents and grandparents said during the show which was taped two years after the crash.  They said they avoided holidays or other previously fun family times because they couldn’t enjoy them without Kate.  That there was no joy in their lives now, though they had two surviving children.

I wanted to take that family in my arms and comfort them.  And though I can’t imagine losing a child, and know that it is oh so much more heartbreaking than our loss of a parent, I wanted to hug them all and tell them that yes, this is how you feel at two years, and it might still be how you feel at three years, or four.  But sooner or later you’re going to surprise yourself by suddenly realizing that something made you laugh and it was OK to do that.  Or something made you think of Kate and feel warm, and that was OK too.  That you don’t have to go on forever in the dark place.  Sometime, sooner or later, you will let the light shine back in. 

Someday you will figure out that being happy isn’t disrespectful to the one you loved.  Smiling at a pretty day or laughing at a joke doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten.  You’ll never forget.  The pain is always there, but it will be just a bit softened.  Someday you will let a tiny bit of happiness creep back into your life.  And that is the day that your recovery begins.   Recovery doesn’t lessen the worth of your family member, recovery adds value to your life, and to the memories you have.

Someday you will let yourself be happy.  And that’s OK.   

Today I moved 5 yards of mulch.

Which took most of the day. 

The good news is that it’s now all on the gardens.  The bad news is it only covered about 1/4 of what I need to do.  So if I am brave (and not too stiff and sore to drive) Tuesday I will go and order five more yards.  Why just 5 yards you ask?  Because if I ordered 10 or 15 yards I’d die of exhaustion just looking at it.  5 yards seems more manageable in some weird way.

So…Katie and I finished up the job late this afternoon.  And now we deserve a nap!

Today I transplanted a bunch of plants in preparation for spreading more mulch.  I put this off all day yesterday and most of today.  It’s just not fun digging up stuff and moving it somewhere else.  I’m beginning to understand that the yard we have is much too big for one person alone to manage.  There is just so much to do, and with husband working 12 hours, 7 days a week it’s all resting on me.  I do some of it each day, but I feel like the people that paint the Mackinaw Bridge.  By the time you get from one end to the other it’s time to start at the beginning again.  When I’m mowing I feel like I should be weeding, and when I’m weeding, the grass is growing.  I haven’t even started the on the main flower garden yet, and it’s getting in worse and worse shape as I ignore it. So I hope to make more progress over the weekend while the weather is a bit warmer and a bit less windy and rainy.

I did take a break today to go to a dog agility trial.  It was held inside a sports dome, with several arenas set up for different sized dogs to run over assorted equipment, jumps, ramps, weave poles, tunnels and chutes.  It was fun to watch.  There were a ton of shelties there, all different sizes and colors, mostly all barking! Lots of other types of dogs as well.   I’m interested in this “sport” because I think Katie would love it, and it might expend some of her energy.   So I spent a couple of hours wandering among the competitors and watching different sized dogs run different agility courses.   Katie has to pass a basic obedience class before we can begin agility.  One of her instructors asked me last week if I had considered agility for her to help her build confidence.  Their goal is to make her less afraid  My goal is to get her to sleep more!

My doggie school homework this week is to take her to two new places.  She’s afraid of riding in the car.  Tonight as I sat reading in the living room, I looked up and asked her if she wanted to go for a ride and she slunk off into the bedroom to hide in her crate.  Geeze, I didn’t even know she knew the word “ride!”  And since she was in her safe place I didn’t think I should drag her out of there and make her go with me, so I went to the grocery store by myself instead.  Tomorrow I’m going to just pick her up and put her in the car without asking her if she wants to go.  Dog psychology.

Katie the dog and I are just back from doggie school.  Another evening of sitting too long and working on stuff too little.  I hope the class gets better.  Soon.  Katie likes it because the instructor advocates training using treats, and she gets a LOT of treats in class.  So much that I didn’t even feed her dinner before we left.  I figure she gets more at school than she would have in her dinner dish at home.  She figured out there was a road trip in store for her about an hour before we had to leave, and disappeared down the hall and into her crate in a bid to stay home and send me to doggie school by myself.  Silly dog.  Once there she did really well when we traded dogs in order to get them used to being with other people.  Each of us was supposed to take our neighbor’s dog, get them to sit and then give them a treat.  We worked our way around the circle like that until our own dog was returned to us.  Katie turned down turkie hot dogs, deli meat and cooked chicken from assorted pet owners.  She accepted the pieces of carrot or dog food presented to her.  Really silly dog.

As for me, I hadn’t eaten before we left either, and I was starving by the time we got out of class.  People didn’t get any treats, even if we did sit.  To compound matters, I signed up for Weight Watchers online last Thursday and have been really good so far in my first week of eating within my points allotment.  So I couldn’t just stop anywhere to get something to eat.  And to make matters even worse, the doggie school is located in a spot that requires me to drive by Cooks Dairy Farm where they make and sell the most wonderful homemade ice cream.  It was hard, but I managed not to stop at Cooks, and came home and made myself a bunch of vegetables.  Which were pretty good, but not as good as ice cream.

Next week I have a job interview with a public library within 30 miles of me!  It’s a library I’d love to work for, so wish me luck!   

Last night I dreamed I was back in school.  It was a long detailed dream, with me attending some sort of engineering lecture where I was sitting in the very back of a large auditorium next to another SI (School of Information) student.  We were discussing why we had registered for this class, it was so far outside of our degree requirements.  Yet we were not contemplating dropping it.  I thought it was sort of interesting, though I had concerns about understanding enough to pass it.  Then the dream shifted and I was in a very long dorm room, on the top bunk.  Also in the dorm room were two friends from SI, S the fiddler, and Sh the librarian who now works in Atlanta.  Sort of reminded me of our internship week in NYC.  But besides the three of us there were 12 other females in assorted bunk beds down the long room.  And only one bathroom!  It was quite noisy, most of the other women were undergraduates, and I felt really old.  I wondered how we’d all get into the bathroom in the morning.  I was discussing with S the fiddler that it might be better to rent a studio apartment with a couple of twin beds than to stay in this dorm room for two semesters.   I didn’t know how I was going to get any work done living with 14 other people in one room.

I woke when Katie the dog walked across my legs and then settled herself on my chest to affirm it was morning.  What a relief!  I have to say that I was much more unsure of why I was in school in my dream than I was while I was actually in school.  It all seemed loud and confusing and unsettling in the dream, while in actuality it was interesting and illuminating and exciting in real life.  I think that I’m dreaming about still being in school because I am meeting a school friend, C, tonight for dinner and to say goodbye as she is moving to Seattle for a new job, and I have plans to meet another school friend, B, soon for lunch in Ann Arbor, and I’m wondering how Sh’s new job in Atlanta is going, and whether E has found work in Boston yet, and I’ve just been chatting online with J as she reigns in a couple of job offers from California.  Such a group we were, now being flung to all corners of the country.  Seems pretty neat.  I think we’ll all remain friends even though we are spread from coast to coast.  You see the best and worst in people when you’re working together in the intensity of grad school.  These people are pretty much the best, and the institutions and corporations that add them into their employee pool are very wise.

Today I planted in a small garden flanking the driveway out by the road. I was replacing plants that hadn’t survived the winter, hoping I’d get it done before the predicted rain began.  I was contemplating how much I was enjoying an unending period of time off from work.  I pushed back the thoughts that I should more actively look for work; the nagging thought that if I wanted to just quit work I could have done that without spending so much money on another degree kept popping into my head. The garden under my hands began to fill  in.

But I loved being in school. I don’t consider it a waste of money even if I never work. As illogical as that sounds. It was a mind-stretching, sometimes mind-boggling experience, stressful and wonderful and crazy and obvious all at once. And I also loved working in a library. So it makes sense that I’d love to work in a library again. If that works out. I began to weed another area of the yard.

Unaware of the clouds gathering overhead I continued to muse. And weed.

I’m reading a new book, What now? by Ann Patchett, based on a commencement speech she made, about the choices people make when they are at a crossroad in their lives. She ends the essay like this: “If you’re trying to find out what’s coming next, turn off everything you own that has an OFF switch and listen. Make some plans and change them. Identify your heart’s truest desire and don’t change that for anything. Be proud of yourself for the work you’ve done. Be grateful to all the people who helped you do it. Write to them and let them know how you are. You are, every one of you, someone’s favorite unfolding story. We will all be anxious to see what happens next.” As I was agreeing that she had it exactly right, the clouds opened up and it began to hail.

I ran for the house, where Katie the dog waited for me, and for whatever is to come next.

And to each of you out there that supported me during my adventure…thanks. I’ll let you know how the story unfolds.

Though Fridays now have little or no meaning to me, they aren’t the end of a work week, or the beginning of a work-free weekend, there is still something special about the day.  Maybe it’s that it is once again sunny and almost warm.  Or the fact that I spent some of it outside, even though it was only to weed.  Maybe it’s just that other people seem to be happier on Fridays, which flows over to me.  I don’t know.  But today was sort of a nice day. 

It was a good day because for the first time since I got back from New York City I got dressed in something besides sweats, and went out with a list of stuff to do.  Starting with my favorite place…(guess where)…of course, the LIBRARY!  I sat there and read for a couple of hours without falling asleep.  It was quiet on this Friday morning, and I enjoyed the luxurary of not having to rush, or to think about what I should be doing instead.  It was lovely.  Then on to the mall where I bought some sheets and looked at all the clothes I don’t need, out to eat a healthy salad, and finally home to weed in my warm sunny garden.  And of course a couple of training sessions with Katie the dog, who happens to already knows all the stuff we’re working on, but doesn’t always care to share that she knows.

I had a really good day.  And the best part?  Tomorrow is SATURDAY!  LOL

Yesterday was  lazy.  It rained nearly all day, and Katie and I napped several times.  Sometimes I’d wake up and think that I should get something done, but usually thoughts like these were only  passing through.  A lazy rainy day with nothing that HAS to be done is a luxury I haven’t experienced as far back as I can remember.  To stay cocooned in a warm blanket as I listened to rain on the roof was a lovely feeling, one to be treasured rather than questioned. 

Katie and I eventually had to get moving and prepare for doggie school.  She knew as soon as I started moving around that something was up and she went and hid in the bedroom.  Silly dog, afraid of the car ride into the great unknown.  In she went, into her crate in the back of the car, beginning her travel quiver even as I closed the crate and lowered the car gate.  She panted and paced the entire trip to school, and once out of the car and inside the pole barn, alongside 15 other (generally larger) barking dogs she stuck to my leg like a burr.

We didn’t get much done on this first night of school.  The instructor talked and we sat on benches and tried to control our restless dogs while we listened.  They were like little kids on the first day of school, no rules, no agreeded upon behavior, just normal doggy sniffing and whining and pulling and sighing and jumping and barking.  They all wanted to get GOING for heavens sake.  Hopefully next week we will be more active.  Katie was glad, this time, to be back in the car.

At home, later in the evening Katie made a quick inspection of the house, then collapsed in such a deep exhausted sleep that I had to physically pick her up to wake her in order for us to take our nightly walk.  And she had only 15 minutes of work at school!  Wait until we spend a whole hour learning new things!  As a previous student I know how tiring learning can be.  Oh wait a minute, most of the learning will be mine, not hers.  Sigh.  Once a student, always a student I guess!

With school over forever, and no job in the near future I have to figure out what to do with myself.  I have always said that if I weren’t working I had a list of stuff I wanted to do.  Today, the first day of decent weather since I’ve been back from New York, I spent a good part of the day outside weeding.  Weeding is not fun, but necessary.  I have weeks worth of weeding ahead of me.  I also need to order a gazillion yards of mulch to put into the gardens to reduce future weeding.  I’m hoping that this blog isn’t reduced to weed control news, but we shall see.

Katie (the dog) and I are going to obedience class tomorrow evening.  The first evening of what I hope will eventually lead to agility fun.  Maybe.  Depends on how I do I guess.  It has less to do with Katie and more to do with me making Katie follow the rules.  I’m not that good at making her do anything. She’s just so darn cute.  But I suppose she would be more cute if she were a bit under control.

So happy days here as Katie and I enjoy the sunshine and the lack of committment to anything in particular.

Yesterday we took time out from the city to spend the day at the Jersey Shore. It was beautiful out there, even threatening rain. Hardly anyone was walking the beach, so we had it pretty much to ourselves. The homes along the shore are beautiful, the sand is beautiful and of course the ocean is beautiful as well.

It’s hard to realize that this can be so near this:

But they are…both exciting and beautiful in their own way.

We’re home now…I’m exhausted by the 12 hour drive.  Time for sleep…more tomorrow.