When I started this blog it was to keep track of my ankle recovery while also giving me something to do--something that felt productive while I was immobile. My mobility has increased. I am hopeful that soon I will be giving the boot to the boot.
Along the way, sometimes my postings turned inward, sometimes outward. For those outward postings that might deem worthy, I am going to try to develop them into 2-3 essays that might be publishable. The inward postings have sometimes brought me insight, actually, they have always brought me insight, but I also encountered unintended consequencies of the risk of honest and non-private reflection.
So, I think it is time for me switch gears, to learn from my successes and failures and to change from this blog to other ventures.
If, as a reader, you want to stay engaged with what comes next, send an email to acfonte@aol.com I will stay in touch with you as my writing progresses.
To those who have encouraged me, thank you. To those who have criticized me, thank you, also.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
how blogs can be bad
Blogs are enticing because they are easy to do. Like my daily journal, I can open it up and just start writing. Unlike my daily journal, a blog posting can be read by others, even if I don't invite them to that particulary reading.
I fell into a black hole of my own in today's blog and hurt someone I do love. I didn't mean to hurt this person. I was trying to figure out what was wrong in our relationship. I do often imagine that my mother's dementia is congenital and that signs of it are already appearing in my life. But it could be stress or hormonal imbalance or any number of other things. I can't claim dementia in today's entry, but I was in this weird, unbalanced place after my dream about my mother which was really a nightmare.
One of the appointments I have had to keep putting off because of my injury is an appointment with a counselor that I wanted to see back in April. Back then, my issue was aging. Now, my issues are deeper and more personal. I will be able to drive soon and so that's the next step up to the bat of recovery for me.
In the meantime, I am mostly apologizing my boundarylessness on the blog. It's time for me to reassess how I use this writing and I take full responsibility for my unintentional, but still harmful, mistakes, blunders and incompetencies.
I fell into a black hole of my own in today's blog and hurt someone I do love. I didn't mean to hurt this person. I was trying to figure out what was wrong in our relationship. I do often imagine that my mother's dementia is congenital and that signs of it are already appearing in my life. But it could be stress or hormonal imbalance or any number of other things. I can't claim dementia in today's entry, but I was in this weird, unbalanced place after my dream about my mother which was really a nightmare.
One of the appointments I have had to keep putting off because of my injury is an appointment with a counselor that I wanted to see back in April. Back then, my issue was aging. Now, my issues are deeper and more personal. I will be able to drive soon and so that's the next step up to the bat of recovery for me.
In the meantime, I am mostly apologizing my boundarylessness on the blog. It's time for me to reassess how I use this writing and I take full responsibility for my unintentional, but still harmful, mistakes, blunders and incompetencies.
bad dreams
I had a bad dream last night, or, more accurately, early this morning. My mother, rather a woman who was acting as if she was my mother, but I knew she wasn't, was walking in the middle of rush hour traffic. I was angry with her because I was just leaving for a trip and had to set it aside (literally, I put the car by the side of the road) and take her back to her apartment with Dad, full knowing that she wasn't my mother but some actress badly playing my mother. She didn't know me, didn't have any interest in me. And my dad was also playing his part by pretending she was Mom, too. Well, I think that is a way I am still playing out my last two years or so of life with Mother as she slipped into childlike dementia that we could no longer deny. There's a part (no pun intended, but there it is) of me that worries I will go out the same way.
Mom didn't much care about us in her last years. I think part of dimentia was a self-centeredness that is uncontrollable. And her girlishness which charmed Dad in their marriage became the dominant part of her personality. I am grateful she didn't turn mean, although when she was in the hospital, she could turn mean and I heard foul language come out of her mouth that I didn't think she even knew how to verbalize.
All this rumination from a bad dream. I need to let it go and focus on the day--my morning swim, lunch with Mark and Aron, driving (solo) to get my badly needed haircut and packing for our trip.
Last night, the first of the post-monsoon sunsets appeared all pink, blue, grey with a fingerlike arc of rainbow over Sabino Canyon. The heat is necessary to bring us the rains and so I welcome those clouds with the promise of what (we all hope) is a good chubasco season. Maybe my bad dream came from this "stirred up" place where the negative ions fissure the psyche and repressed feelings bubble up like lava. I will accept the shift of the psyche and assimilate it into my awareness while, at the same time, letting it fade into the consciousness of today.
Mom didn't much care about us in her last years. I think part of dimentia was a self-centeredness that is uncontrollable. And her girlishness which charmed Dad in their marriage became the dominant part of her personality. I am grateful she didn't turn mean, although when she was in the hospital, she could turn mean and I heard foul language come out of her mouth that I didn't think she even knew how to verbalize.
All this rumination from a bad dream. I need to let it go and focus on the day--my morning swim, lunch with Mark and Aron, driving (solo) to get my badly needed haircut and packing for our trip.
Last night, the first of the post-monsoon sunsets appeared all pink, blue, grey with a fingerlike arc of rainbow over Sabino Canyon. The heat is necessary to bring us the rains and so I welcome those clouds with the promise of what (we all hope) is a good chubasco season. Maybe my bad dream came from this "stirred up" place where the negative ions fissure the psyche and repressed feelings bubble up like lava. I will accept the shift of the psyche and assimilate it into my awareness while, at the same time, letting it fade into the consciousness of today.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
after PT
A quick posting after PT (I need some sugar to keep me going so that comes next):
Lots of new/old muscle groups starting to work again. The therapist started with a massage of ankle tissue, moving the fluid up toward the heart and it's something I can do at home. We did motion stretches and an interesting exercise with the foot on a ball, she held onto a resistance band and I rolled my leg toward my head. I could feel the upper calf and thigh muscles saying "hello", we are here! She introduced me to a pelvic/back muscle band strengthening exercise which is in preparation for the lower back to begin to do more weight bearing movements. Then we did a weight shifting exercise, rt leg shifts to left leg, vice versa and a "step up" exercise which is a kind of deconstructed marching movement with a bend in the foot front and back. Of course, the right ankle can't bend very well in the forward movement but it's pretty good toward the back. The last two I can do also in the pool.
I know that a portion of this recovery is "mental". For example, I took my first solo car drives today--just to the UA and back home but doing it alone was a big step. I have to focus more and not just "kick back" into driving habits where I took ankle/leg movements for granted. It's all about learning.
This morning, I reconnected with my meeting/recording skills and, afterwards, I felt twinges in my right back muscles--moving in old/new patterns as I scribed meeting ideas. It felt good to be doing that work again!
so, now, I will reward myself with a sugar buzz. I look forward to my evening swim tonight and soothing some of the areas that I worked hard today.
Lots of new/old muscle groups starting to work again. The therapist started with a massage of ankle tissue, moving the fluid up toward the heart and it's something I can do at home. We did motion stretches and an interesting exercise with the foot on a ball, she held onto a resistance band and I rolled my leg toward my head. I could feel the upper calf and thigh muscles saying "hello", we are here! She introduced me to a pelvic/back muscle band strengthening exercise which is in preparation for the lower back to begin to do more weight bearing movements. Then we did a weight shifting exercise, rt leg shifts to left leg, vice versa and a "step up" exercise which is a kind of deconstructed marching movement with a bend in the foot front and back. Of course, the right ankle can't bend very well in the forward movement but it's pretty good toward the back. The last two I can do also in the pool.
I know that a portion of this recovery is "mental". For example, I took my first solo car drives today--just to the UA and back home but doing it alone was a big step. I have to focus more and not just "kick back" into driving habits where I took ankle/leg movements for granted. It's all about learning.
This morning, I reconnected with my meeting/recording skills and, afterwards, I felt twinges in my right back muscles--moving in old/new patterns as I scribed meeting ideas. It felt good to be doing that work again!
so, now, I will reward myself with a sugar buzz. I look forward to my evening swim tonight and soothing some of the areas that I worked hard today.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday morning
We had a very good weekend and so easing into Monday morning wasn't jolting to either of us. Plus, we have a short week before we go to see friends over the 4th of July. I did a short drive on both days but don't feel quite up to a solo venture yet. I helped with housework and rearranged a few things in my office--throwing out some stuff I don't need and labeling files that I do. I replaced some dead flowers with new blooms and that always seems to set my spirit on a good path.
This morning I will "walk" to the neighborhood pool for my swim and skip the Y until tonight when we go there and I bicycle and do weights. When I awoke this morning, I could see a bit more definition in my ankle. As the day goes on, my ankle swells, so I use the morning to compare my progress from the days before.
I found myself slipping back into some other layers of health worry yesterday, triggered by an article I read in the paper and today's article on how we and the medical system try to avoid death-talk, even in the face of it, brought back my mother-in-law's colon cancer battle (war and sports metaphors are frequently used in our deny-death and dying culture) and my mom's confusion over her slipping away due to heart failure. Both Mark and I say we want to age differently from our parents, although I have to say that the way my dad is dealing with his 91st year is close to what I would want. He exercises in and out of the pool, enjoys his weekly poker game, has made new friends in his retirement community, watches his diet (after his second ulcer hospitalization), reads his daily Bible literature, takes a monthly trip to the Casino and goes out to shop with his community members or his daughters when our schedules mesh. So I do have a "role model" for healthy aging and he and his two remaining sisters seem to have found a path that I could refer to as I move into my sixties and beyond ( I hope ).
Flashing back, in Sunday's NY Times Style section, there's an article, with photos, of the resurgance of Skee-ball. I used to play it with Dad and my sister at the VFW and I would love to play it again. I kind of think of it as bowling for people with bad backs (and now, bad ankles). Who know how much retro-stuff will have a second or third life with the younger generation, and, we aging boomers, can grab repeat rounds at games we used to play.
Hmmmm. A bit nostalgic this morning and I didn't feel that way when I started to write. But that's how it goes with writing the morning blog: it takes me where I need to go.
This morning I will "walk" to the neighborhood pool for my swim and skip the Y until tonight when we go there and I bicycle and do weights. When I awoke this morning, I could see a bit more definition in my ankle. As the day goes on, my ankle swells, so I use the morning to compare my progress from the days before.
I found myself slipping back into some other layers of health worry yesterday, triggered by an article I read in the paper and today's article on how we and the medical system try to avoid death-talk, even in the face of it, brought back my mother-in-law's colon cancer battle (war and sports metaphors are frequently used in our deny-death and dying culture) and my mom's confusion over her slipping away due to heart failure. Both Mark and I say we want to age differently from our parents, although I have to say that the way my dad is dealing with his 91st year is close to what I would want. He exercises in and out of the pool, enjoys his weekly poker game, has made new friends in his retirement community, watches his diet (after his second ulcer hospitalization), reads his daily Bible literature, takes a monthly trip to the Casino and goes out to shop with his community members or his daughters when our schedules mesh. So I do have a "role model" for healthy aging and he and his two remaining sisters seem to have found a path that I could refer to as I move into my sixties and beyond ( I hope ).
Flashing back, in Sunday's NY Times Style section, there's an article, with photos, of the resurgance of Skee-ball. I used to play it with Dad and my sister at the VFW and I would love to play it again. I kind of think of it as bowling for people with bad backs (and now, bad ankles). Who know how much retro-stuff will have a second or third life with the younger generation, and, we aging boomers, can grab repeat rounds at games we used to play.
Hmmmm. A bit nostalgic this morning and I didn't feel that way when I started to write. But that's how it goes with writing the morning blog: it takes me where I need to go.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
a poet who lost her words
I read a story in today's Sunday NY Times about an 89 year old poet who suffered a stroke and couldn't put her words together. She tried to recite the Lord's Prayer, but could only get so far as "Our Father..." in English; however, she could recall the entire prayer in the Latin she learned as a child. She had raised seven children and always found at least 10 mins. a day to write, so she started with just 10 mins. a day in speaking her words out loud. She had a cadre of friends who came to her house to help her rediscover her words. She has healed, althought she mixes pronouns and phrases still can be confused.
There were many other stories in the paper--about the oil spill, the war in Afghanistan, the struggling economy--but I only skimmed those stories; her story I read. As I reclaim my daily life post-ankle injury I am being more selective about what I do, what I read, where I put my energies. I dropped out of a Coffee Party group because it had become too ideological for me. I stopped going to a local "meta-dialogue" because I grew tired of references to the "black swan" and all the gloom and doom of the 21st century world. I think I am not only willing to be willing to change; I am ready to change. And I want to choose my path with clarity and deliberate slowness. I am not needing to go fast, just to move.
It's like summer life in Tucson. This is our "winter of discontent." Because of over 100 degree heat, we are obliged to slow down, take siestas, maybe squeeze in what we have to do in the morning and take a deep outside breath after sunset, when the sidewalk no longer burns our feet. My plants need to be watered more often and so do I. I seek nourishment and a sense of care from other places. I don't feel like wandering but plot out the necessary outside travels with priority. I hunker down, waiting for rain.
So far, the clouds are not gathering in the East. Blue skies stretch all across the Catalina and RinCon Mountains. Butterflies are beginning to appear and my dog sheds fur by the handfuls. She needs to lighten her load, too.
If I had lost my words, what recitation would come to mind as a step toward restoration? I seem to chant a refrain from Methodist communion: "Lord, be gracious unto us and help us to accept thy blessings." Old hymns come to mind as do nursery rhymes. Deeper parts of the brain, I am reading (current Newsweek) are protected as we age, so, it's logical that as a stroke affects the frontal areas, the deeper areas might rebound more quickly. I think that might be happening with my ankle injury as well--surface scars remain but complex tissue beneath are reconfiguring and bringing me a renewed sense of strength. So I will just take this time to reshuffle my life's cards and, if I mix my pronouns, it doesn't really matter.
There were many other stories in the paper--about the oil spill, the war in Afghanistan, the struggling economy--but I only skimmed those stories; her story I read. As I reclaim my daily life post-ankle injury I am being more selective about what I do, what I read, where I put my energies. I dropped out of a Coffee Party group because it had become too ideological for me. I stopped going to a local "meta-dialogue" because I grew tired of references to the "black swan" and all the gloom and doom of the 21st century world. I think I am not only willing to be willing to change; I am ready to change. And I want to choose my path with clarity and deliberate slowness. I am not needing to go fast, just to move.
It's like summer life in Tucson. This is our "winter of discontent." Because of over 100 degree heat, we are obliged to slow down, take siestas, maybe squeeze in what we have to do in the morning and take a deep outside breath after sunset, when the sidewalk no longer burns our feet. My plants need to be watered more often and so do I. I seek nourishment and a sense of care from other places. I don't feel like wandering but plot out the necessary outside travels with priority. I hunker down, waiting for rain.
So far, the clouds are not gathering in the East. Blue skies stretch all across the Catalina and RinCon Mountains. Butterflies are beginning to appear and my dog sheds fur by the handfuls. She needs to lighten her load, too.
If I had lost my words, what recitation would come to mind as a step toward restoration? I seem to chant a refrain from Methodist communion: "Lord, be gracious unto us and help us to accept thy blessings." Old hymns come to mind as do nursery rhymes. Deeper parts of the brain, I am reading (current Newsweek) are protected as we age, so, it's logical that as a stroke affects the frontal areas, the deeper areas might rebound more quickly. I think that might be happening with my ankle injury as well--surface scars remain but complex tissue beneath are reconfiguring and bringing me a renewed sense of strength. So I will just take this time to reshuffle my life's cards and, if I mix my pronouns, it doesn't really matter.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
shifts
Not sure why, but when I awoke today I felt an internal shift taking place. Although it is true we have shifted away from the longest day of the year (6/21), toward shorter days, mere seconds less of our intense summer sun is not, yet, making a difference. But yesterday, at a meeting, I spoke out (not a new behavior), and, as I did, I looked around the room and saw that all of the others at the table were younger than I was and all but one was younger by 20-30 years. I didn't process it then, but I have since, that I am in the "legacy stage" of my public dialogue career. And while I could get depressed about that, I am not because I sense this younger generation is more than capable of taking of the next stage. I am not quite out the door yet; they still look to me for guidance, but they aren't waiting for my wisdom. I feel really good about that and it's freeing me to then look around me and see what I want to do next with my life.
This new opportunity with the Arizona Humanities Council really excites me. I have always loved reading to children; I read to Aron until he was 12! And so this PRIME TIME project seems like a perfect fit. It connects the reading to children and their families and it allows me to help them stretch what we read into the realm of big ideas, philosophy, the humanities. I know when I first discovered that realm, reading poetry at my Grandparents Dice's farm house, I knew a magical door had appeared before me. Public dialogue first drew me in with Kettering's work and it, somehow, too, presented the "big ideas" of political theory, philosophy and history as the bigger framework for community work. I haven't really been able to mesh that approach here in Tucson with the exception of the two projects that got funded by the Az. Humanities Council: Good Neighbors and the Good Life and Fields to Tables. Although neither could help "pay the bills" in the way that the Grant Road and City of Tucson work has been able to do (and I am very grateful for that work), these projects had long legs that extended into the deeper roots of community life. I sense this new project will, also.
In addition to that reality is the juxtaposition of this effort called Imagine Greater Tucson. Although I remain cautiously optimisitic about its grand plan, the group of people I am working with (mostly my age but a few younger, a few older), are smart and committed to community work. It's a bit like having the energy of the early years of the National Issues Forum, and I find that, surprisingly, I am enjoying it. I am setting some boundaries so that I don't get sucked into the vortex of egos (including my own), and need to be aware of the pull that still has for me. But, if I can keep my wits about me, I think it will be a good transition from Grant Road (which is either frozen or winding down) into the next two years of part-time community work.
So, what remains is the opportunity to write more--whether that is fiction or non-fiction. And other creative ventures may present themselves. As my ankle is slowly healing, I am slowly shifting directions. It's a good time--summer when the "livin' is easy", and, if not easy in the desert, it's definitely slower--to consider these internal shifts and be open to the way the monsoon winds blow.
This new opportunity with the Arizona Humanities Council really excites me. I have always loved reading to children; I read to Aron until he was 12! And so this PRIME TIME project seems like a perfect fit. It connects the reading to children and their families and it allows me to help them stretch what we read into the realm of big ideas, philosophy, the humanities. I know when I first discovered that realm, reading poetry at my Grandparents Dice's farm house, I knew a magical door had appeared before me. Public dialogue first drew me in with Kettering's work and it, somehow, too, presented the "big ideas" of political theory, philosophy and history as the bigger framework for community work. I haven't really been able to mesh that approach here in Tucson with the exception of the two projects that got funded by the Az. Humanities Council: Good Neighbors and the Good Life and Fields to Tables. Although neither could help "pay the bills" in the way that the Grant Road and City of Tucson work has been able to do (and I am very grateful for that work), these projects had long legs that extended into the deeper roots of community life. I sense this new project will, also.
In addition to that reality is the juxtaposition of this effort called Imagine Greater Tucson. Although I remain cautiously optimisitic about its grand plan, the group of people I am working with (mostly my age but a few younger, a few older), are smart and committed to community work. It's a bit like having the energy of the early years of the National Issues Forum, and I find that, surprisingly, I am enjoying it. I am setting some boundaries so that I don't get sucked into the vortex of egos (including my own), and need to be aware of the pull that still has for me. But, if I can keep my wits about me, I think it will be a good transition from Grant Road (which is either frozen or winding down) into the next two years of part-time community work.
So, what remains is the opportunity to write more--whether that is fiction or non-fiction. And other creative ventures may present themselves. As my ankle is slowly healing, I am slowly shifting directions. It's a good time--summer when the "livin' is easy", and, if not easy in the desert, it's definitely slower--to consider these internal shifts and be open to the way the monsoon winds blow.
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