Reverb 13: Day 28. Tears, tears, tears....

The prompt:

Cry it out | What moment in 2013 brought tears to your eyes?  Are you usually a crier?  Or did tearing up take you by surprise?

 Lordy, when didn't I cry this year!

I've written before about the 'leaky face syndrome' that I share with many other family members. As I get older, it gets worse. That means I puddle up at those email or Facebook stories that are meant to touch your heart, at Hallmark card or the Budweiser Clydesdale commercials on tv, at various television shows and movies and plays and performances, at kindness towards me or my family or feelings of gratitude -- actually, I can puddle up just sitting in my chair.

I puddle when I see old friends again, like my dear girlfriend Julie who visited her in November and it was like we'd never been apart. I puddle when my husband does sweet things for me, every single day. I puddle when I think of how very blessed I am and how grateful I am to 

I just had a phone call from someone who is trying to help my daughter get out of her situation, someone within the system who has recruited other people to help too, and I had to work to keep a huge quaver out of my voice (failed at that) and not to break down in tears. I have held back many tears this year, partly because I feel like if I start that cycle of fear and anger and loss and worry that I won't stop for days.  I can work up a pretty good head of irrational steam just thinking about all the what-ifs and shoulda-coulda-wouldas in that situation, and that's when I need to stop and let the angels have the worry and fear and projection because it's not something I can do a thing about, not really. R has to drive that bus, not me.

So anyway, yes. I am a crier. I am a puddler. I am surprised when I DON'T puddle up at things kind and loving and sentimental and touching. 

June doings

It's not for lack of subjects or opinions that I haven't posted since early this month. I have plenty to say, as those who know me well will attest, and sometimes I'm sure they wish I'd shut up.

I participated in a mystery dinner theater mid month to benefit our county's branding project -- a fund raiser for a professional marketing and branding guru to create campaigns that highlight our county's biggest assets -- among them are wine and olives.

It was an experience. I've done this before, about five years ago, and it's fairly corny -- lots of scantily clad women (excluding me, I might add), chase scenes, cat fights, raunchy humor, and a thin plot. The crowd loved it. It was a sellout both nights. And it involved a fair bit of rehearsal that last week, and a lot of willingness to adapt and change. It wasn't a particularly artistic experience and I sure didn't 'stretch' my acting -- I mean, I can play overbearing and bitchy blindfolded with both hands tied behind my back -- but the cast members are wonderful and I loved nurturing those relationships. That was the payoff for me.

On top of that  I'd waited until the 11th hour to finish the 45-hour required real estate coursework to renew my license for another four years, not that I really plan on using it. But it took a lot of work to get it and you never know... so I was studying and taking online tests during the early part of the month as well. It's done. I could indeed sell real estate again in California, under a licensed broker. 

And then there was a memorial service for a woman we met only a few times but are good friends with her partner and wanted to support him. It was an amazing service and I only hope that when my time comes that people are as loving and generous with their tributes as we heard at this service.

One thing in particular made me wish I'd known her better. Her spiritual path was very important to her and she'd studied in India, worked with practitioners from various spiritual paths, and her service was held in a Christian church designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. She was completely comfortable incorporating ALL of these practices into her own spiritual belief system and embraced all of them -- I love that, and found that to be eye-opening, especially since there were so many others there who seemed to feel the same way. The service was a mashup of  Eastern chants, Christian ritual, music from all of them, and poetry. Many were dancing at the end as a trio sang "The Great Storm"; my leaky face dripped tears because it was so perfect, such a joyous acknowledgement of who this woman was, of who we all can be.

There is no doubt that her children and our friend will miss her terribly, and there were moments of grief that just tore at your heart, but it was a great sending-off and ended with a reception and chocolate cake -- her wishes, since she was known for her desserts and homemade bread. She was only 65 and died of cancer -- a fairly prolonged death, hard on her and those who loved her.

Then this last Saturday, we recorded Tony's first radio theater script for New Radio Theater. His is an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and a number of wonderful north state actors came together to interpret it. We were cast as the great cobra Nag and his wife Nagaina, and had a great time hissing evilly. This is Tony's first script and he was just delighted that it was accepted and recorded for play later in July. I'll put the date and time as soon as I know for sure. It was quite a red-letter day for him, and I was very proud of him and the end result. He's now at work on an original script.

And earlier in the month we had a lovely picnic with our now three-year-old grandson, his brothers and sister, and our daughter V in a park area near their home. Gabe took to the plasmacar that we gave him without any instruction and rode it all over the adjacent parking lot, as did the other kids and even his momma! It was a fun afternoon, a little piece of normalcy and celebration within a lot of busy-ness and turmoil. 

That's the 'doing' stuff for this month. There has been more 'being' stuff going on too, some of which I'm still pondering and trying to figure out. Not all of it has been especially fun -- including the ongoing state of the economy and turmoil over the budget, and with that, Medicare and Social Security, topics which at our age loom quite large in our priorities. Change is afoot for our children again, and we have become pretty good at holding our opinions and tongues close, although it is an uneasy compromise at times.

And the month which began in rain and cool weather also draws to a close with more rain and cool temperatures today (although we'll be up to 100 this weekend again) -- unusual weather for these parts, welcome though it was. Friday will bring a new month with new beginnings and who knows what endings we may find.

The 'I got them tears in my ears and drool down my chin goin' to the dentist' blues

I go to the dentist regularly because I know that dental health is important to overall health. I get 'em cleaned every 3-4 months. And I hate it. All of it.

My dentists through the years have been good people: sensitive, caring, efficient and thorough, and skilled. With the exception of one mean old endodontist long ago, they each have been very understanding about my dental phobias. And I'm a good patient, I might add, although when I've moved from location to location, I've usually procrastinated finding a new dentist until it's clear that something is wrong (usually a missing filling or a toothache), and then I go, cry at the first appointment, and then am fine (more or less) for any subsequent appointments.

(Even though I still need to take enough anti-anxiety meds to allow my whole body to rest in the chair instead of tensely balancing on my hands and heels and back of the head.)

Don't laugh. I'm serious. When I was a child going to the dentist -- sans any meds, and at least once sans any novocaine -- I was so afraid of being hurt that I'd be tense as a board. While the hygenist/assistant and dentist always told me to raise my hand if it hurt, I'd still cry through the procedure, a slow drip of tears. And more than once, when I did lift my hand, the assistant gently put it back down again, which just increased the tear flow because it hurt and because I was so intimidated.

Because my head was lower than my feet, the tears would leak out of the corner of my eyes and drip into my ears. I'd end up with wet face and wet ears, and feeling very sorry for myself.

I even wrote a column about it when I was a cub reporter back in the late '60s for the Springfield Missouri Daily News, and I got mail -- mostly from dentists, who were not thrilled that I'd talked about how the drilling hurt and the rather unsympathetic assistant who put my hand down and just patted it when I'd lifted it to indicate pain. One of them admired the bright smile shown in the photo that ran with my byline, noting that the dentist had had something to do with that. There also were a few who completely understood how I felt since they are also dentalphobes.

So today I got my teeth cleaned. I've been brushing with an electric brush and using all the little dental torture instruments the hygenist has recommended. And I wear braces, which makes all of it more time consuming and tedious. She commended me on the wonderful job I've been doing, but then pointed out the places I've missed. Eh. So we'll try to hit those -- at least in the couple of weeks before my next appointment.

And then she fired up the ultrasonic de-plaquer, whatever it's called.

When I get my teeth cleaned, I go pre-medicated for pain and at least a little bit for anxiety. Digging around these old teeth and new crowns can really hurt. And despite all of this, I had puddles of tears in my ears by the time she'd finished.

The sonic thingamabob whines its way around the gum lines and in between teeth with the occasional oopsie into gum or lip tissue which hurts like someone stuck a hot needle into it. She had both hands in my mouth (and it's big, but not THAT big) and my neck was crooked. There was a heating pad behind my back, which is supposed to help relax me, but all it did was make an uncomfortable hump between my shoulder blades and the back of my head.

Oh, I always bring a CD player with some kind of loud music that will drown out the whine and help me concentrate on something besides what's going on in my mouth -- but it only partially worked today. I could feel my body begin to levitate off the chair into the three point (heels, hands, head) position and my jaw was locked so tightly that the whole side of my face hurt. The little suction thingy hung over my lip, but trails of saliva mixed with water still drooled down my chin and I worked hard not to gag as it pooled in my throat.

I felt very sorry for myself. snifflewhimperpoutwhine

When she'd finally scraped the last shreds of plaque (and a little enamel and gum tissue too), I was offered a choice of chocolate, raspberry or bubble gum flavored tooth polish. Bleah. (Maybe they should offer adult flavors: scotch on the rocks, martini, merlot...)

And once my teeth were raspberrily polished, the doc came in, poked around with his needlenosed probe, and pronounced me fine. Thankyouverymuchseeyounexttime.

So I made my way to the lobby and scheduled another appointment in four months, and then went to the car where I wiped my ears dry and let my chin quiver and the tears flow. And I wondered just how old I'm going to have to get before I stop feeling like this every time I have to go to the dentist. Pretty old, I'm guessing, and probably with a goodly dose of dementia or amnesia thrown in.

I'm reading Picoult's Plain Truth.

From Grey's Anatomy to the great wheel

I just finished watching this week's "Grey's Anatomy," the very hot series on ABC.

The father of one of the primary characters (George) died following surgery: they took him off life support, with his family standing around his bed, touching him. And Christina (another character, not known for her empathy) told George that he now belonged to the dead dad's club -- one that you're not in until you're in, and you wish you weren't in it. When George told her he didn't know how to live in a world that no longer had his dad in it, she replied, "That doesn't change."

It made me cry. I know how that feels. And my daddy died following surgery, and we also took him off life support, although I was 2000 miles away and connected to my mother and brother only by phone and heart when he died, although I flew there later that day. So it hit big time with me tonight.

I know it's just a story on a popular TV show. I cry at movies, at sappy Hallmark commercials, at sad books or stories in magazines -- and TV programs. One of the reasons the show is so popular is that the characters are not perfect, and they arouse empathy as they struggle through relationships and failures and fears and joy. Their emotions and experiences resonate with most of us -- one of the reasons that show is so successful, I think.

I miss my parents tonight. I wish I could pick up the phone and listen again to my dad tell me about -- oh, just tell me about anything. When I'd talk to my folks each Sunday, first Mother would tell me what she'd been doing, how she was feeling, who she'd played cards with that week, the bits and pieces of life. Then Daddy would get on the phone and we'd often talk about politics: national, sometimes state or local, and sometimes he'd really get on his soapbox and marvel at the stupidity of this or that. I didn't care what he was saying. I just cared that he was saying it: I'd close my eyes and just soak up his voice talking, storing as much as I could of that sound in my head. Especially after he died, I'd listen that same way to my mother. I could see her expressions in my mind's eye as she spoke-- I knew how her face looked when she was animated, or when she was tired, or worried, or discouraged.

Oh, I know it's all part of the great wheel of life, that it turns slowly from birth until death, and while our stories are different, the basic evolution is the same for each of us. We're born. We live, love, laugh, sing, dance, cry. We touch others' lives and they touch ours, and nothing stays the same. Our actions affect not only ourselves but the lives of everyone we love who also loves us. And we die. And the wheel keeps turning, again, over and over through the ages.

We all have that in common despite our vast differences. We are not alone in our loneliness, in our sadness, or with our leaky faces, for each one of us experiences these in the context of our individual stories. I cry for your pain and sadness out of my knowledge of how it felt for me. I wrap my arms around you not so much to comfort but to let you know you're not the first or only person to be filled with such grief or pain, and that you are not alone in it.

We are all connected, we humans. And it's when we realize this and communicate on these very basic levels that we can finally accept where we are on that great wheel and move ahead into grace.