Ferreting Out My Dreams

I just finished the article, "What Did You Dream Last Night?" in the August, 2011 issue of The Sun.  I've also been working my way through the book, Native American Ways: Four Paths to Enlightenment.  I seem to be fixated on my dreams.  I don't think this is a bad thing, and, as both this article and the book point out, our dreams have something to tell us about our past, present, and even our future.  Probably the most important thing from what I've been reading is that we shouldn't ignore our dreams.  Guess that means I can't ignore the ferret that showed up in my dream last night.  Once again I went to my favorite dream interpretation website, www.dreammoods.com, to discover that "To see a ferret in your dream, symbolizes distrust and suspicion of others. The dream may also be a pun on searching."  The distrust would be how I'm feeling toward my ex-husband as he manipulates the previously agreed upon divorce settlement b/c he didn't like how he would be getting his half of my retirement account.  The searching interpretation for the ferret would definitely be that each day since my cancer diagnosis, I try to search for ways to keep myself physically, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually healthy and balanced.  Unfortunately that balancing act has left me paralyzed in accomplishing any major task beyond the necessities today.  But I refuse to feel guilty about sitting on the couch all afternoon watching On Demand episodes of Necessary Roughness and Royal Pains.  Even before my cancer diagnosis I had to have down times to recharge my batteries.  I'm going to look upon this as just that, a recharging day.  Maybe there's even a third interpretation for my ferret dream: I'm searching for someone to trust, and that person is me.  I have to trust that I'm doing exactly what I need to be doing right now and not searching for something that I think I should be doing b/c it's what's expected.

What Next

One week ago I was given the news that I have B-Cell Lymphoma.  The worst part about such a diagnosis is telling others.  I'm not afraid to die, but I'm afraid of others' sympathy.  I can be strong as long as others don't give me those sad looks and sorrowful tones.  This is why I greatly appreciated my older daughter's reaction when I told her.  After a few tears and a big hug she said, "What next?"  I'm so proud of her attitude in focusing forward on the next step in this process, and it's an attitude she's come by in her own struggle with Crohn's Disease.  For the past seven years since her diagnosis, we've just focused on one surgery at a time, one new drug at a time.  I realize the phrase, "What next," can be interpreted at least two different ways. As a statement of frustration I could be saying, "I survived a brain aneurysm and kidney cancer, my daughter has a chronic illness, my mother is dead, my marriage of almost 19 years has ended, and now I have cancer again.  What next."  Or the phrase could be a question.  "Okay, I have cancer again so what next?  What's the next step in beating this?"  When I told my younger daughter that I again have cancer, she immediately went to the Internet to find more information.  She basically took the same attitude of focusing on the next step, which, for her, is finding out what we're dealing with.  I'm proud that I've raised my daughters to first think about what can be done rather than throwing their hands up to play the victim.

I'm assuming processing all the emotions of this past week caused me to have a very vivid dream last night. I dreamt my car had a flat tire.  Not just a simple deflated tire, this tire was ripped in half with things sticking out of it.  I decided to walk, but when I looked down the path I saw it was flooded in places.  When it was impassable, I bypassed the flooding, which took me to someone's patio where they asked me to identify a certain species of flower.  I didn't know, but I recognized that the same flower was blooming in another spot that had an identifying tag so I was able to help them.

I'm a believer in dream interpretation so I went to http://www.dreammoods.com/ for some guidance.  According to this site, "To see or dream that you have a flat tire, indicates that you are feeling emotionally drained and weary. Your goals are temporarily hindered and as a result, you are unable to progress any further."  That pretty much nails the way I'm feeling.  I won't meet with the hematologist at Mayo until August 9th so I'm not looking too far into the future until I know what I'm dealing with. The flooded roadway is also significant, and apparently it makes a difference whether the flood waters are raging or gentle.  According to Dream Moods, "To see a gentle flood in your dream, indicates that your worries over a certain matter will soon be swept away."  I also think it's significant that I found an alternate route rather than just feeling stuck and stranded.  While I wait to see the doctors, I'm being proactive by increasing my Vitamin C intake to 10,000 mg per day.  I orded the book, Life Over Cancer: the Block Center Program for Integrative Cancer Treatment, and I also ordered some barley grass tablets.  I've never been a "wait-and-see" person so I'm always going to look for an alternate route, which I think is also represented in my dream by me looking for a way to identify a flower I didn't know and walking when I discovered  I had a flat tire.  My aunt Jean called this time right now a "bump in the road," which is probably what gave me the flat tire.

A Mother's Arms

I dreamt about my mom last night.  She's been gone for over a year-and-a-half, but I saw her in my dream as clearly as I'm seeing this computer screen.  And not only did I see her, but I felt her arms around me as she gave me a huge hug while I sobbed into her shoulder.  In that moment I felt loved and comforted and cared for.  I think we always need our mothers, no matter how old we get and whether they're living or dead. 

It's been a stressful week.  My older daughter had her tonsils out on Monday so I've been caring for her.  My neighbors down the street asked me to take care of their flower gardens and yard while they're on vacation so this involves at least an hour each day, while tending to my own yard and gardens.  Oh, and their yard was selected "Yard of the Month" so I can't screw it up.  I've had to drive my younger daughter to and from work these last four nights, which takes about two hours out of each day.  Apparently I was feeling more stressed and anxious than I realized b/c there Mom was, smiling w/ outstretched arms, just as I saw her so many times when she was alive. 

Several times a day during his past week I've recited the mantra, "May I be well. May I be happy. May I be free from suffering. May I make progress."  Maybe the mantra brought me Mom.

Moving a Mountain One Rock at a Time

I moved three ton of rock yesterday.........by hand.  Okay, it was only a ton-and-a-half, but I moved it twice.  While  unloading it, I thought of the movie Cool Hand Luke and how the warden made him dig a hole and then fill it up, only to dig it out again.  He never lost it.  He just kept saying, "Yes, Sir, Boss," or something to that effect.  I could be cool like that, after all I only had to do this once.  Then I realized that the pile I had made unloading the rock still had to be spread around my newly created fire-pit area.  Still, I didn't lose it.  This was work of my creating, and after the stress and strains of teaching, of my divorce, of my daughter's graduation, I welcomed the menial, manual labor. I welcomed the freedom to let my thoughts rush where they may while my body sank into a rhythm of clicking shovel, twisting torso, clacking rocks.  The thought of moving a ton-and-a-half of rock made me think of my 85-year-old father.  He was a block-layer in his youth, developing biceps that could break a string tied around them.  He used to unload 100-pound bags of cement off rail cars, onto a cart, then wheel a ton of them down a ramp to unload them again. Dad never lost it either, Luke would've been proud. 

Physical work builds physical strength, not just muscle.  Wimpy, weight machines aren't the same.  Physical work builds emotional strength too.  Nothing like taking your anger and frustration out on a helpless rock.  I admit there were times when I literally sat in the bed of the truck throwing the river rock onto the pile one at a time or stood at the end of the open tailgate tossing them over my shoulder.  I realized that even moving one rock at a time still gets the job done.  No, I didn't move the entire ton-and-a-half one rock at a time, but there were moments when the task seemed so daunting and physically impossible that I was reduced to one-at-a-time.  Then I thought of the tortoise and the hare.  My mind really does wander when my body is otherwise engaged.

When I was done unloading the rock, my younger daughter helped me carry the 25-pound landscaping stones w/ which we built the fire-pit.  I had already moved these 350 pounds of stone twice, once into my car at my dad's and then out of my car once I got home.  So I guess you can add another 700 pounds to that three ton.  In his younger days, Dad could've carried four of those stones at once w/o breaking a sweat.   So it was w/ a heavy heart that I lifted and loaded and carried these stones b/c Dad is no longer able.  He's become quite feeble since Mom died.  He tried to lift a stone, a 25-pound stone, and it was too much.  Another reason I was determined to move 3,700 pounds of rock, b/c he can't.  It's a damned, reality-check when you realize a parent can no longer move mountains, so what's a daughter to do but move it herself.  Still, a feeble-back is better than a feeble-mind, and I'm going to keep working both as hard as I can for as long as I can.

Once I was done w/ the rocks and stones (sounds so lightweight when I say it like that), I loaded the pickup w/ two rabbit hutches, a clothesline post, a wide assortment of chain fencing and a lot of scraps of wood.  I probably loaded another ton of junk then helped unload it again at the landfill. Not surprisingly, I collapsed on the couch.  Before going to bed, I told my daughters to keep their cell phones close-at-hand (as if they're ever anywhere else) so I could call them if I needed help getting out of bed in the morning.  No call was necessary, no child-labor laws were broken, and I think Luke would've been proud of me too.

Break a Glass

I continue to be amazed at how a person can be alive and breathing one moment, and the next moment he's dead.  My cousin's husband passed away this morning after battling cancer in his shoulder.  We knew it was coming.  In fact, we know death will come for each of us at any moment, yet still we're surprised.  I think I know the exact moment he passed this morning.  I was loading the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher when something or someone startled me, causing me to drop the glass in my hand which landed on two other glasses in the dishwasher, shattering them all.  I didn't know glass could splinter so.  Looking back, it wasn't so much that the glass slipped out of my hand, but it seemed like it was knocked out of my hand.  My theory is that Mom was hovering around me, as she often does, and in her efforts to help me lighten my task load, knocked the glass out of my hand at the moment when Ivan passed. Undoubtedly she was being summoned to help guide him to the light.  I just knew, or felt, that at the exact moment that the glass dropped, he was gone.  When my older daughter awoke a short while later and received a text from Ivan's granddaughter, she only confirmed what I already knew.  There's got to be an old-wives' tale about what it means when you break a glass.....like dropping a knife means company's coming.....or is that a spoon?

A Quick Note to Note the Notes About Notes

It's a rare moment anymore that I'm able to sit at the piano and play a piece of my choosing.  But tonight, playing Mozart's Sonata I, a piece I first worked-up for an All-State audition in high school, I came across some notes.  Not just the musical ones, but the notes my piano teacher made almost 30 years ago to remind me how to play certain sections.  Mozart was criticized by some for having too many notes in his compositions, the musical ones that is.  Maybe my teacher should've made more notes, or I should've practiced the notes more.  Either way, I wasn't selected for All-State, but the measures of the section I played are still numbered.  In college I worked up more of the piece, and the red-inked lines drawn by my piano professor still remind me how to play the triplets against the eighth-notes.  Years from now when a great grandchild inherits my music, she may not even notice those red lines or numbered measures, or if she fancies them in passing, she may wonder who marked up this music and why.  She too may struggle to play triplets against eighth-notes, and for a brief moment we will be united across time -- two pianists who needed a reminder on how to play a tricky passage.  I know I've looked at old pieces of music that I've inherited from who knows who and noticed the sections that pianist struggled with.  Sometimes I appreciate those notes that warn me of difficult notes ahead, and sometimes I get haughty and scoff at the notes needed to play notes.  "How could you not get that?" I question the pianist of the past.  But I must refrain (pun intended) from being too disdainful lest my future great granddaughter be a pretentious pianist patronizing her predecessor.  Alliteration duly noted.

True Confessions of a Pot Holder

Hi, I’m Mari………I’m 44 years old, married for 18 of those, a mother for 15 ½, and I’ve never purchased a pot holder. (This is where you all say, “Hi, Mari.”) Some might call it a hot pad or a hot pot holder or an oven mitt. Whatever you call it, I’ve never bought one. I have them, thanks to the sewing ability of my mother and the generosity of Secret Santa’s, although the latter ones tend to be of a more decorative nature and therefore not very practical. I made some pot holders when I was younger when I got one of those mini-looms for Christmas. You know the kind that comes with the multi-colored bands that you loop around and weave through a little, plastic, square loom. I could certainly use some new hot pads now and am reminded of this each time I burn my left thumb and index finger, but it just seems like such a waste of time and money. What’s the big deal if my hot pads are scorched and torn and discolored? No one’s going to see them but my family and me. And the occasional dinner guest. And the occasional picnic when I bring a hot dish, or do you call it a casserole?

Yes, I undoubtedly need new pot holders, but I refuse to take even a brief moment to make a special trip just to buy them, and I can’t seem to remember anytime I’m already out and about. I’m not even sure what to look for when selecting them. Do I need to know my hand size? Are some materials more flame retardant than others? I seem to have a knack for placing them too close to a burner. Good thing the sink’s close to the stove. A student knitted a pot holder for me once, but it only lasted about two weeks before it was reduced to a mass of shriveled yarn with crispy corners. If buying hot pads is so easy then why don’t they put them at the front of the store so I can remember that I need some? Maybe then if I actually purchased some, I’d also receive some kind of warning about how NOT to use them. I know if I ask my mom she’ll make me some new ones, but I should be intellectually mature enough and financially stable enough to buy some all by myself.

Maybe my lack of ambition and desire to purchase a pot holder is a latent desire to never cook again. No. That would be a very obvious, blatant desire. I’m sure Freud would agree.

I have to use pot holders for everything, not just cookie sheets and pie plates, because our pots and pans are made of cast iron. Grab the handle of one of those hot babies without a pot holder one time, and you’ll never do it again……….even if the pan is cold.

Maybe since I’m spending 650 words talking about pot holders, I’ll remember to buy some the next time I’m at a store that sells them. As soon as I figure out where they hide them. Don’t tell me they’re in the Housewares section because I don’t buy measuring cups and spoons and dish clothes and whatever else they sell there. I have a wonderful mother and mother-in-law who keep me in supply of all that stuff. Chances are favorable, however, that when I finish this column, I’ll forget all about needing new pot holders or hot pads or oven mitts until the next time I have to move a pan of boiling potatoes or remove a pan of muffins. Maybe to help me remember, we need to give them a more important name. After all, something so essential that hasn’t evolved in centuries should be called something like, Hand Protector 2000.