That same Monday, all Hell was breaking loose in Oklahoma. I was doing my part to help by being a calm texting voice of reason to my friend Jen who was waiting out the weather and worrying about her husband Ken who was supposed to be getting on a plane. He eventually did make that flight many hours later, a flight that brought him here for a conference. I kidnapped him from the conference yesterday and forced him to eat Ethiopian food and drive him around the city. It was great to see him and hear the news about what is going on at my old work place. We had a nice visit and I got a little bit teary when I dropped him back off at his hotel.

Tonight I will meet Chris’s family for dinner. They are here for a family get-a-way. I haven’t seen the kids in too many months and I have a feeling that they might not be “kids” any more. So this seems to be the week of surprise visits. People dropping into my days to share meals and break bread with. I cannot complain. Each one have been a pleasant surprise to this week.

Happy Love Thursday.

One thing we are really good at doing is banding together in times of destruction and catastrophes. We’ve had a lot of practice, unfortunately. No one knows more than us how easily things can be replaced and rebuilt. No one knows more than us that what truly matters is the well being of those we love and no one knows more than us the importance of holding onto and keeping those loved ones close. Even though I have a new home now in a different state, part of my heart will always be in Oklahoma. This is where my family lives, those people I hold close.

So…my heart is with my Oklahoma family today and the days to come.

But then come the days when I feel so empty and hollow that the edges of everything physically hurt. Sometimes that feeling lasts for more than a few days. When that feeling sticks around for more than I few days, I start to go to war with myself. There’s a voice inside me that’s mean and yells to stop feeling sorry for myself followed by a petulance voice that says “why shouldn’t you feel sorry for yourself?”. But mostly there’s panic and fear at being trapped inside this empty space. This is usually when I start try to fill that space with something else. Maybe if I change my diet up or start running. Maybe if I buy that new pretty blouse or shoes that I’ll never wear. Maybe if…

It dawned on me late last week that maybe that space doesn’t need to be filled. What would happen if I stopped panicking about the emptiness and just let it be there? It’s like having a spare room that is just a spare room, not filled with boxes of junk or holiday decorations. We always talk about cleaning out the crap in our homes and how we’d kill for a room that was just a room and not a glorified closet. There’s always that need to put something in the space even if it just happens to be chairs you can’t sit on. So, that’s what I’m doing. I’m letting that empty space just be empty space and I’m working really hard at being OK with that.

Apparently I have leaky eye syndrom. I’d like to blame it on the tree pollen. Hormones. The amount of soy in my diet. Blame has to be put on something. I’d like to tell you what’s going on in my brain right now but I don’t even know what’s going on inside there. Every thing is coated in a dark goo. I keep trying to come up with ways to clean myself up, distracting myself with shiny objects. I wore my new favorite dress with sexy shoes to work thinking if I looked good I’d feel good. I have peeled all of the skin off my lips. They are a bloody scabby mess. I have eaten all the wrong foods and my C2-5K program has stalled out somewhere in the middle of week 3. I just keep starting over with day one of week 3. The only thing I’ve been consistent with is my yoga practice. It is the only place where I seem to find pure joy and probably the only thing keeping me from melding myself to this couch.

So…here’s the plan. I’m giving myself this week to wallow and be silent. I won’t be posting here this week, but I will stick to my daily happiness project on my tumbler page. Next weekend I will be traveling home for time a wedding and time with my family. I think I’ll do a juice or plain old cleansing diet when I get back. Clean up the goo. Come back with a better attitude. I promise.

This is what I want for the weekend. I want to go to a yoga class and the City Market. I haven’t been to the City Market in ages. I know that at this time of year it will be full of new plants and life and joy and hopefully sunshine. I want to hang clothes on the line and make ghee. I want a day where I don’t wear pants or open my mouth to speak. I want to lounge on a blanket outside and color in my creative journal. I want to tie-dye a t-shirt. I want to drink shandy and ride the scooter, but not in that order because it is not safe to drink and drive the scooter or any vehicle. I want a vacation weekend and that’s exactly what I am giving myself. I am thankful that I can do all of those things this weekend or none of them if I choose to.

We cannot forget that this weekend is also Mothers’ Day weekend. I am so thankful for my mom, but I am also thankful for all of the women in my life that have been a mother-figure to me. Katrina has been mistaken as my mom often enough and she played a large role in helping to raise me into the woman I am today. Simply put, I am thankful for her.

And…I’m thankful for you. Here’s to the promise of a beautiful weekend and a truly Thankful Friday!

My siblings are way older than me, my brother by 16 years and my sister by 5. I know five years doesn’t seem like much, especially now, but we never went to the same school at the same time. By the time I was three, my brother was married and out of the house and by the time I was 14, my sister was married and out of the house. As a result, I have always been independent and self reliant. The joke in our small town was that my parents had three only children. When I was a baby, I learned that if I hopped up and down in my highchair, I could scoot it across the kitchen floor. This was how I managed to spill scalding hot coffee down myself. Twice. I became quite adept at climbing cabinets to get to bowls and cereal. After one summer of my sister’s daily lunches of burned mac & cheese or soggy tuna salad, I figured out very quickly how to use that stove. I remember the first day of preschool, when mom dropped me off I barely waved goodbye. I don’t even know if Mom hung around to wistfully stare at me or got teary or any of that. I headed straight to the big easel in the middle of the room and started painting. I remember witnessing other kids being dropped off that day and being shocked by the screaming and crying. I had never seen someone cling so fiercely to a hand. One girl threw a tantrum like I’d never seen before. It was mesmerizing. Her face was as red as a tomato as she screamed and cried. Her mom would get one of the girl’s tiny hands pried from her arm only to find it instantly reattached to another section of her body. I’m sure her mom thought she was fighting an octopus. I was appalled. “What’s the big deal? She’ll come back and get you later. Plus you get to play with all this stuff!” Preschool for me meant that I was just that much closer to getting to ride the big yellow bus. The same bus my sister shoved me away from every morning when I tried to go to school with her. I didn’t understand these kids and their separation anxiety. I was always being dropped off with various babysitters and Mom always came back. OK, there was that one time when I was forgotten, but that was just one of those miscommunication things between Mom and Dad. It happens. What? It totally happens. Anyway, I knew someone would eventually come get me.

My mom never passed on much in the way of words of wisdom. She’s a good Southern woman. So she taught me to stand up straight and chew with my mouth closed, but she didn’t teach me anything about menstrual cycles or sex. She never warned me about drugs or alcohol, but she did teach me how to tie a proper bow and how to flip pancakes. One time she told me, after I’d mentioned that I thought my boobs were getting bigger, that “Sex will do that to you”, which was funny because I was still a virgin at the time. I told her “I guess that’s something to look forward to.” She moved onto a new topic. The one thing that I can say is that my mom has always been there in the 5.8% of the time when I did need her. All of those horrible sewing projects I had to do in 4-H? Mom was right there. She’d camp out on the floor of the sewing room while I painstakingly removed the right sleeve from the left side of a dress. She sat there because she knew the minute she left I would be hollering “MOMMMMM!!!! HELLLPPP!!!!”. I was not good at stitching.

And then Chris got sick. He got so sick that I had to take him to the emergency room. That was where they discovered the large tumor on his liver, the same day our sewage started backing up in our basement. I spent from early morning to late evening in an emergency room waiting, worrying, and freaking out. When they got Chris settled into a room, I went home to take care of the dog and get some rest. Except I was too revved up to sleep. I donned rubber gloves and a mask, grabbed bleach, a dustbin and a mop and then headed down into the basement to attempt a clean up. I scraped and gagged and gagged and scraped poop off the floor until my arms were rubbery and I was woozy on bleach fumes. When I finally gave up and lay down, I lay there staring at the ceiling while my brain tried to work out how I was going to be at the hospital with Chris, deal with the literal shit in my basement, take care of the dog and be at work all at the same time. It was like that riddle where you have a duck, a bag of seed, and a fox and you all have to get across the river, but you can’t carry it all in the same trip and you can’t leave any of the three alone together. I had reached the point where I didn’t have the brainpower to solve the duck, fox and seed riddle let alone the riddle of my life. I knew that in order to get everyone safely to the other side I was going to have to make two trips, carry the duck and fox over together, leave the fox. Then go back with the duck and get the seed. I could make two trips or call my mom. I called mom. And she was there. She was there to take care of the dog and deal with the plumber. She made sure I had a hot meal every evening and clean clothes to wear. And when her oh-so-self-reliant-independent daughter broke down in sobs and admitted her fears, she was there to put her arms around her. She knew better than to tell me that everything would be all right, because in the end it wasn’t, but she was there to reassure me that I didn’t have to go through it alone.

There are times when I get so frustrated with my mom. Really, who doesn’t get frustrated with their mom? Moms can be so annoying with their know-everything ways and their insistence on helping. But then I think about the child I was and the person I’ve become. I think it must have been really hard being my mom. I was her last chance at having a child to mother and coddle and I wanted nothing to do with being mothered. I was her baby. The baby of the family. Ha! My parents still introduce me to people as “their baby.” I imagine that it must have been really hard to have your baby only need you 5.8% of the time, to sit back and wait for her to ask for help. And so I take note of the things she did teach me. I take the time to tie a proper bow on a package. I can flip a mean pancake. I have excellent posture. I still can’t sew a straight line and Mom may still have to help stitch things together, but I always, always, remember to pack practical shoes.

Happy Love Thursday.

A few nights ago I had a dream that I was in Chicago for BlogHer. A group of us had ventured out to visit a museum which doesn’t seem all that unusual (my dreams are boring). I think we were visiting the National History Museum. The unusual part of all of this was the new exhibit the museum had just opened. It was a weird kind of roller coaster that jankily traveled straight for bit and then would drop several feet, travel straight, drop, travel straight and then drop until eventually you were at ground level. The ride was all the talk and had even had a “making of” special on the Discovery Channel and PBS. The ride was supposed to represent the various stages animals go through as they go to slaughter. It was horrifying and visceral and I was really excited to experience it. And I was a little disappointed to wake up before I got to ride it. Usually when I tell people the reason I don’t eat meat, I tell them it’s because I feel better physically when I’m not eating meat. But after that dream, I think I’ll start adding that I feel better physically and mentally when I’m not eating meat.

The Canadian geese have been behaving a little weird around here. The other day, I looked out my fourth story window and could see the silhouette of a goose sitting on the ledge of the building across the street from us. At eye level. Now I know geese can fly and all that, but I have never seen them perch high up on top of buildings along with the pigeons. This morning I could hear them honking as I walked up the east stairwell. They were so loud that I thought they were inside. When I peaked out the window between the railing I could see two geese on the ledge of our patio. I don’t know what they were talking to each other about, but it sounded more like arguing than talking. Later in the morning you could find one of them perched on the roof while the other paced back and forth on the ledge a few levels below. I wonder if they’ve nested somewhere on our building. That seems dangerous. What happens if a little goose falls out of the nest? Don’t water fowl tend to learn to swim before they learn to fly? I also think it’s just strange to see such a large bird perched on top of a tall building. The image is prehistoric modern and sends chills down my spine.

I want to wear wild crazy shoes to Amy’s wedding. They have to match my mint green dress, but I still want something unusual. I want to wear shoes that you would normally never see me in. When Mom was here, we looked at shoes at one of those shoe warehouse like places. I found a pair of crazy tall wedges that had all the shades of green zigzagged along the sides. I’d never even tried on shoes that tall before. I used to joke around with mom when ever she’d take me shoe shopping. I’d do this thing where I’d pick out the ugliest/craziest/wildest shoe and look at her say “what about these?”. I did it because it was funny but also because I knew that it drove her crazy. It doesn’t drive her crazy any more, but I still do it because it’s funny. We have a good laugh over the ridiculous shoe and then move on. But this time, instead of just holding up the shoe, I actually put them on my feet. The shoes put me about three to four inches off the ground. Add that to my current height of 5’7 and my long legs. It was like watching a brand new baby foal stumble around on her legs for the first time except not as cute. I did get several compliments though as I practiced my runway walk and if they’d been the right shade of green I probably would have bought them. Alas, I am still on the hunt for some crazy mint green (like) shoes.

Look at that! How can I not plant Very Happy Carrots?!?

This weekend, Mom and I were sitting on the couch watching the morning news and they were talking about how difficult is is to get kids to eat their veggies. I looked over at Mom and said “I never had a problem eating my vegetable.” Mom said it was because we grew our own vegetables and maybe that was it. I think being a part of where my food came from made it easier to convince me to eat that food. That is one of the reasons that story about those kids means so much to me. That package also arrived on the same day my garden was being covered in snow. It was a day I was thoroughly dejected and fed up with even an idea of a garden.

A few weeks ago I planted seeds and hoped for Spring. This weather has made it extremely difficult to remain hopeful for anything to come from the seeds I planted. But there are things sprouting away out there. It’s amazing really. These tiny seeds that look so fragile and like they really don’t have a chance in the world, but then you throw it in the dirt and add some water and suddenly you have the makings of a salad right in your own backyard.

It’s the slowest, sweetest kind of magic.

It was a good thing Janell reminded me about that wedding because for some reason I thought it was the same weekend as Mother’s Day. I figured two birds, one stone. Turns out that theory is incorrect. The wedding is the weekend AFTER Mother’s Day. I can’t afford to make two trips to Tulsa in the same month and I started fretting about letting Mom down on Mother’s Day. Then I remembered that this is a First Friday weekend. That means art walks and food trucks. It means that the antique markets in West Bottoms are open and as a bonus, the Brookside Art festival is this weekend. These are all things my mom loves. I did not have to twist her arm to get her to come see me this weekend at all. I am thankful that we will have this weekend of things to do and selfishly, I am thankful that I will have this time with Mom without any other obligations, despite the fact that the weather keeps acting like it’s mad at us.

This week I have ridden the scooter and slept with the windows open. Wednesday morning, I laid in bed for a few minutes before getting up to start my day, just listening to the birds talk to each other outside. That afternoon I walked outside to take a picture of one of our fountains. It was so warm outside that I had to take off my sweater. And then it all went to poop. It was snowing while I typed this entry. Big snow globe snowflakes. I think it’s about time Mother Nature booked herself a stint in the Betty Ford Clinic. I am thankful that I took the time on Wednesday to enjoy the warmth and to be outside.

I am thankful for a package of seeds that came from Suebob (that gets it’s own entry). I am thankful for finding creativity when I didn’t plan my Thursday meal well (zucchini, mushrooms, tofu and pasta…that’s what I had to work with). And I am always thankful for you.

Here’s to a great weekend and a very Thankful Friday!

And when I took this picture?

No? Well…it does seem like a lifetime ago. But do you see that guy taking orders? I met him the other day. His name is Ceasar (the mastermind behind The Magical Meatball Tour). We sat outside at Bella Napoli’s and he watched me eat my pizza while regaling me with tales of his life. There’s a word in Ayurveda called rasa that basically means juice or essence. It’s that thing that makes life good. When you’re living a rasa life you are living a juicy life. Ceasar is one of those people that has a lot of rasa in his life. He’s head chef at a trendy farm to table like restaurant and when you watch him talk about cooking you can tell he loves it. He was once part of a traveling sideshow where he ate glass and swallowed swords. He ATE glass! He rides a scooter and he gives really great hugs. He is, by far, the most fascinating person I’ve met in a really long time (maybe since that time I met Wayne Coyne).

All I did was sit and listen to these stories. The most crazy and exciting thing I’ve ever done was get married in Vegas and buy a scooter. I had my eyebrow pierced for a while. That’s livin’ on the edge. I have always led a safe and somewhat conventional life. At one point Ceasar stopped in the middle of something and said “I think I’m doing all the talking.” I just shrugged and said “yeah”. The truth was I didn’t really care. I was just having a good time listening to all of it. I am not the extreme adventurer and I am perfectly OK with this. That’s just not who I am or my job in life. No, my job is to be the recorder of these stories, to be the one that sits in rapt attention. I am the observer. I always have been. Of all our friends from college, I am the only science person. They were all English/Drama people. It was like I was part of their group to study them. I like thinking of it that way. I like being the collector of those tales and memories, scientifically filing them away in the back of my brain.

Happy Love Thursday!