Flailing

"Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat." Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)





I feel like I am flailing. It's a great word, "flailing". Today was just one of those days. I was useless for a bit and then started cooking. Cooking is a special kind of alchemy that calms me when little else will.





The first thing I made was an apple-peach sauce. Think apple sauce with a peach thrown in for good measure. It was pretty good and Gram ate some. She's not eating well, so I'm doing my best to entice her.





Also on the menu today:


A strange version of "Magic" cookie bars...you know... graham cracker crust, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, coconut, etc.


Orzo Soup


Rice Pudding


Roasted Chicken with an Orange Soy Sauce


Barley Salad with Edamame and Corn and Mint





The garden yielded two bowls of tomatoes and tomatillas so tomorrow will be spent whipping up a small batch of Marinara.





I was planning on renting a table at the local farmer's market tomorrow morning and having a mini yard sale, just not in my yard. One person's crap is another person's treasure - or something like that. Instead, I will probably not sleep again tonight and end up waking later than I want and spending the next three hours in a daze.





Monday night is my first class of the Fall semester and I am not ready. I don't want start yet. I'm not finished with summer. Once again, I feel as though I have missed the season. So much is lost. So much is missed. I spend far too much time scrambling and trying to catch up and never feel like I have any time to just be where I am.





Mindfulness, I know. We'll see what happens when I tell the Doc that ordered my to practice mindfulness that I didn't have time.





One of my friends recently commented that she was jealous of my time to write this blog. I assured her that is was not easy to find. I scrape a few minutes every night to write here, but I never know when that will be and often it is the last thing I do before going to bed. I haven't written every day like I planned and the first time I missed, felt awful about it. Guilty. I felt guilty. Now I know that, like so many other things, it doesn't matter to anyone but me. Still, I wanted to keep that promise but it is important to be kind to myself and do what I can.





That is something I am still learning - what I can and cannot manage. It's going to take me a long time to figure that one out. Right now, I can try to be here for my family when they need me, Lord knows they have been there for me enough times. So in lieu of doing anything useful, I will do what I can.





She ate the sauce. She ate the soup I made for her lunch. She ate the chicken and rice pudding tonight. I keep thinking that I will keep her alive with the force of my will. My head keeps saying, "I just can't handle her dying now." My response is, always, "When could I handle it better?"





It's awful to think things like that. When would be a better time for your Grandmother to pass away? And I think, well.... when I'm in a better frame of mind. To which I can also counter, "Oh, great, you'd like her to wait until you're having a really good day and then she can kick the bucket?" I'm forced to admit that doesn't sound like a great plan either.





See, it would have been so much easier (for me, anyway) if I had bought it in the accident. Then I wouldn't have to worry about members of my family dying.





When I was a kid I often worried about the people I loved dying. It's probably a normal phase of development. I would pray that we would all die together, in some tragic mass accident. Instantly, of course, so none of us would suffer. To my six year old brain it seemed like a perfect plan. We would all go down together. No one would have to be alone.





Now I know better. We're all alone in the end. And there's not a damn thing we can do about it.

P.S. It seems necessary to explain the picture that goes along with this entry. I searched for an image for "Flailing" and had a host of "Flailing Arm Man" pics appear. These things are at once disturbing and strangely naive and tend to make me want to cry and laugh at the same time, something I've been doing quite a lot of these last few days.