The morning after the night before

I'm hungover. In comparison with hangovers from my youth this one is not so bad. A low-grade headache. Lethargy. Craving a greasy cheeseburger and coffee. The culprit? A few more glasses of white wine last night than I would normally have. It was all in good fun, we had a party to celebrate the new lunar new year of the monkey. And I appear to have learned my lesson, from said hangovers past: don't mix, have water in between drinks, eat stick-to-your-ribs food (dumplings and sushi did the trick last night).  And definitely no tequila shots.

Why isn't gazing on a flower, walking in the rain, skidding on a slippery road or standing under a waterfall enough mental or emotional stimulation? Why the need to imbibe, ingest, inject or inhale a toxic substance?

I'm no teetotaller, by any means.

I smoked the occasional cigarette as a teen, bumming them off my few friends who smoked, or sneaking them from my dad's cigarette box on top of the fridge. I liked the feeling of holding it between my fingers, and hovering at my lips before taking a drag. I liked taking a long inhalation (once I got the hang of it anyway), and exhaling with my head upturned blowing the smoke up to the sky. I didn't like the ashy taste on my breath or the feeling of dizziness inevitably brought on after only a few drags. I could never finish a whole cigarette. Pot was similarly wasted on me. I only tried that once, and the almost immediate spinning effect it brought on was discombobulating enough to make me take a pass forever after. The idea, or opportunity, to try harder drugs never occurred to me.

I have had more than my share of embarrassment with alcohol. A surprise 19th birthday party ended badly, after too many Black Russians, and one New Year's Eve my mother called me at a party to wish me a happy new year (obviously, and wisely, to check up on me). I had to take the call from a swirling mattress, with my friends and a plastic bowl by my side. I thought I handled the conversation  pretty well:

"Hi Mom. Happy New Year! Yes, I'm having a great time. Everything's fine. Yes, I'm sleeping over at C's house. No, I don't need anything. See you tomorrow!" When I hung up, my friends burst into applause. I keeled over on the bed and vowed never to drink again. That may have lasted a month, and was followed by many (too many) similarly embarrassing and juvenile nights, and a few (too few) foggy memories.  But somehow, through luck, some good sense, or simply by grace, I have managed to stay on the healthy side of casual inebriation, visits to the porcelain goddess notwithstanding.

As my kids approach and enter their teen years, I am now consumed by all-too-real fears: what if they drink and drive? what if their friends do? what if they try heroin or crack, just once? This is not a theoretical or abstract thought process. I know friends and family members who have struggled with addictions and substance-abuse. They have hurt themselves and those around them. Some have faced their demons and their rock-bottom selves in the mirror and done the hard work to move forward with their lives, clean and sober, with humility and perseverance, and are now achieving success in life and love. Some are still inching towards health.

But why them, and not me? It's certainly not that I was smarter. I have too many friends that have too many examples of how dumb I've been.

It is naive to think that I can keep my kids from experimenting or over-indulging. I certainly can't point to myself as a model example. They know of my fondness for the fruit of the vine, having seen me indulge with my husband and with my friends on many occasions.  I can only hope that the lessons they learn, from school and from us speaking openly with them, will somehow allow them to stay on this side of that precarious edge.

When the song "We are Young", by Fun, comes on the radio while the kids are in the car, I always sing along:

So if by the time the bar closes
And you feel like falling down

I'll carry you home

Tonight.

And then I add: if by the time the bar closes you feel like falling down, call me and I will come to pick you up, or take a taxi home, and we'll discuss it in the morning.

A vase of wilting roses

For a week now, the roses

bloom white, in a glass vase,

their green leaves stuffed

like crackers into a box.

As they open, the

scent of honey and

a dampness

on their folds.

The white petals peel away

and fall unnoticed

to the floor, where

they gather with dust and cat hair.

Now fading,

now wilting,

they seem more lovely

than when first bought,

more lovely and

more loved, as I and

the stars around me

bloom, white, and falling.

The sweetness, and wonder, of patience.

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. -- Aristotle

My amaryllis is blooming for a third time. It's coming out so sloooooowly. I was excited to see the third stem emerge from the bulb a few weeks ago--a small green pearl of promise. The plant, a gift from a friend before Christmas, had already given me two stems of trumpeting flowers. Over the course of two months I have been observing as each stem produced first one flower, then a second, then a third and finally a fourth so that all four were in full bloom simultaneously before wilting and dropping their petals.

The amaryllis sits in a white pot on the coffee table, topped with small pebbles and surrounded by branches of redwood. Every morning, as I descend the stairs to the family room to start the day, my eyes rest on the flower pot to check on its progress. For weeks, centimeter by centimeter, the stem has pushed upwards, reaching towards the sun. Yesterday, I cut back the second stem, its petals having drooped and fallen several days ago. I watered the plant for the first time in several weeks (mercifully, this plant needs very little water). The petals are enclosed in a green pocket, biding their sweet time until they are ready. This week, the pocket began to open. No matter how long I sit watching them, hoping to catch the actual moment of blooming, I cannot speed their progress.

I am impatient. This weekend I brought a knitting project to an abrupt close. I had started to knit an afghan two months ago--my first big project after several scarves and neck warmers--but at the rate I was knitting and purling I would not likely have completed it until June, long past the time when I could use it this winter season. Besides, I was constantly losing track of the pattern and the bigger it got the more noticeable that would be. So on this, the coldest weekend of the winter so far, I chose to cast off, and re-branded the project a "writing shawl". Mission accomplished.

My daughter, on the other hand, spent a good eight hours making cookies today: we shopped for icing and decorating supplies, then she measured and mixed the ingredients, chilled the dough for an hour (while I napped), rolled it and cut out two dozen shapes by hand using a hand-drawn template, mixed four colours of icing, and then baked, iced and decorated each one individually, turning down numerous offers of assistance from me and my husband. Each, "Here, let me help you," or "Hey, can I do some for you?" was met with an icy stare, narrowed eyes and a brusque "No, I'll do it myself." Eight hours.

Many people criticize young people for not being patient enough: "Kids these days, attention spans of zero, they only want something if it's convenient, they want things handed to them on a platter and don't know how to work for them, they can't focus...."

And then there's my children. Grace and her baking. Gabriel, at 14, waiting out a year before he can play contact sports again in order to avoid another head injury. Jacob, at 13, saving up $600 of allowance and gift money to buy himself an iPhone. They have their trying moments, as all kids do, but their level of patience and focus far exceeds mine and I poke fun at myself for not keeping up with them. But I also wonder, when--and how--did they become this capable of putting in the time to achieve their goals?

I like to think we can take responsibility for it--their successes confirmation of our stellar parenting skills--but I recognize in them the traits found in generations past: tenacity, creativity, steadfastness, spirit and patience. They are in constant motion, experiencing constant growth, even when I am not still enough to notice. I feel small in the face of their potential, inadequate in the face of their capacity, and curious about all that is yet to come for them. Observing them, as observing the amaryllis, allows me to practice patience. For days, weeks, months and years there were baby steps, imperceptible changes, seemingly endless nights, coupled with my longing for liberation.

(I am ashamed at my use of that word. What do I know of "liberation"? This week, South Africa celebrated the 26th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison, after an incarceration of 27 years. For a period of time longer than half my lifetime, that great man sat imprisoned in a tiny cell at the very ends of the earth, and emerged with both humility and vindication, his pride and sanity intact, to lead his country and inspire a generation (myself included) of people who hadn't even been born when he was first sentenced. And I dare to say I felt liberated when my children could tie their own shoes, take their own baths, make their own lunches, plan their own priorities.)

This week brought another example of the power of patience and perseverance: confirmation of gravitational waves in the universe. The calculations, complex; the implications, mind-boggling. According to one very clear explanation: "If you could see [gravitational waves], you can see back past where you can’t see with physical light. That would be cool. We’d have direct access to something that’s farther away than we can hope to see otherwise." (http://www.vox.com/2016/2/13/10981548/gravitational-waves-significance). It took one hundred years to determine, following Einstein's prediction in 1916. Perhaps the symmetry should not be surprising.

I, too, have had proof of their existence. I see and feel the vibrations of the universe every day. If only I stop to observe.

On writing

There are so many things I want to write about: memories (my own) and memory (good vs bad, real vs imagined); loss and grief; space and time and their elasticity (is it like the plasticity of the brain? is that why we speak of time as healing or of the universe as expanding?); friends, family, the people in my life (who are the real characters and what do I learn from them?).

I could also write about faith and belief, my own and how it mixes with those (or lack thereof) in people close to me. Water, as a theme, and light. Mountains and sea, as place. Flight, departure and arrival. Death and dying: the act of, the rituals for, the fear, the beauty, the finality, the continuity. The sense of drowning -- the pull of weightlessness against the push of gravity -- when I feel consumed by sadness. How I cannot bear emotion within song and music. The internal soaring when I experience joy.

I think of the writers I admire most:  Isabel Allende, Timothy Findley, Salman Rushdie, Alice Munro, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Michael Ondaatje, Maya Angelou…  At a writing course I took I was told to imitate the writers I admire. Imitate them? Really? The short lines, consisting of a single word sometimes, of Findley. The fogginess of Ondaatje. The poetry of Angelou. The sense of place of Munro and the shock of Atwood. They write about the personal: real, or imagined.

A moment of self-doubt. Random self-doubt. Never ending loops of self-doubt: What could I possibly write that has not been written before? What could I possibly say that has not been said before?  

It’s hard to write. It's harder not to. 

Sometimes I have very little energy, and my brain feels numb. Nevertheless, I try to push on. Quantity, not quality, the pros say -- just get the words out and onto a page. Listen to the words, and hear them whisper. Brush them away if they are bad or don’t make sense. Better yet, invite them in to visit for awhile. I am learning the value of just writing: to clear the cobwebs, to open up the mind, to loosen the senses, to begin to see or perceive things differently. I am staying open to possibility and inspiration. Or insanity. Yes, I am open to insanity, and the inspiration that may lie within that.