LadyCygnet.com

We’ve lived in our current dungeon for a year. Our overall quest is to have the best lives possible. To that end, we want to be able to achieve a number of goals. Chief among those goals are to raise our children to be good people who can live independently as adults and make good choices. We also want to find the work we are meant to do and do it to the best of our abilities. In keeping with the fantasy RPG theme, let me introduce the party:

Michael: Party leader. Michael was a Fighter, but now he is a Druid. His primary mission in life is to help his fellow Fighters adapt to life outside of war. Michael’s experiences with war led to him spending a lot of time in a clinic healing. Many Clerics attempted to cure his wounds, but it was a Druid who was able to get to the heart of what was poisoning him, and Michael was healed. Since then, Michael has become a Druid and joined a clinic as a healer.

Rebecca: Chief Dungeoneer. Rebecca is a Bard who specializes in Lore. She has worked with Clerics in clinics, but she prefers working within the dungeon, where she can share lore while caring for her children. Rebecca has permanent penalties to her Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength, which adversely affect her ability to do more than maintain the dungeon and care for the other party members.

Cherry Blossom (CB): Rebecca’s daughter from a previous relationship. CB has expressed interest in dual-classing as a Druid-Cleric in order to heal cats, but she seems to have a greater talent for being a Bard like her mother. CB is extremely clever and good at finding loopholes in dungeon rules, which indicates that she has some Rogue qualities as well…or possibly Lawyer qualities. CB’s father is a Lich, so she may have some innate abilities that would make her a fine Sorcerer.

Sunflower (SF): Michael and Rebecca’s surprise baby. SF has a maxed-out charisma score, a deep love of music, and a strong affinity for cats.

The Lord High Goof: Tony is a very large red tuxedo tabby who has an immense amount of energy and nigh-infinite patience with children. CB is his favorite person, but he occasionally snuggles with Rebecca or SF. Tony is obsessed with springs and getting Haru to play.

Her Most Noble Floofiness: Haru is a supersize calico Ragdoll mix whose hobbies include sleeping and avoiding people when they are awake. Haru’s previous owners had her declawed and fed her indiscriminately, so she is obese. The arthritis in her damaged feet makes it hard for her to play, but she does try sometimes. She sometimes surreptitiously plays with SF by laying on the back of the couch and tickling SF’s face with her extremely floofy tail.

I had to uninstall and reinstall WordPress because I accidentally moved or deleted something that should not have been touched at all.

So, after a long time of knowing I needed to do something about the broken website, I finally did something about the broken website.

I’ve also been working on getting some health issues under control. These health issues have interfered with my ability to do more than making sure that my husband and kids are fed and clothed. With the help of some good folks, I am getting into a position to be and do more.

Part of my transition into being the best me possible involves discovering (or possibly rediscovering) things about myself that have been buried under layers of trauma and neglect.

I’ve started reading a book called The Pathfinder because, other than being a mother and a wife, I feel pretty directionless. It’s a neat coincidence that The Pathfinder shares its name with an offshoot of Dungeons and Dragons. I used to play D&D when I had more time and a playgroup.

This is one campaign I’ve got to do on my own, though. Nobody has the answers I hope to find at the end of this quest. I hope to update this blog often as I embark on this personal journey to be both the best mother and wife I can be and do work that does more than earn a paycheck.

I’ve been here!  I’ve just been super-busy.  I’ve written, illustrated, and published three books, I’ve been doing a lot of freelance work, and I’m getting MARRIED!

More to come later.

Please note: this blog is the product of having a really rough day. My stepfather was rushed to the ER by ambulance early this morning, and my daughter had to go to the urgent care because she was showing signs of a UTI. My stepfather turned out to be having vestibular vertigo, and when his tests cleared him of heart attack or stroke, he was sent home to recover. My daughter does have a UTI, but she’s had so many in the past year that the doctor who saw her wants me to contact my daughter’s primary care doctor and have her see a urologist and have an ultrasound of her kidneys, just to make sure there is no underlying condition that is causing her UTIs.  I think she’s having them because she hasn’t mastered the proper way to wipe and doesn’t drink as much fluid as she should, but it’s better to be safe and check things out than to have her develop something worse than recurring UTIs.

And to top it off, I saw something that just poked a HUGE hole in my ego and reminded me just how little my work means to anybody. It hurts a lot.

I really stink at self-promotion. The problem is, no one notices what I do unless I call attention to it, and it seems…I don’t know…wrong somehow, to call attention to what I do. I pour my heart and soul into what I do. If I share something I’ve written or made that I personally feel is important, it’s only after busting my ass and agonizing over making it good enough to be acceptable by my standards, and my standards have always been high and harsh. However, I’ve never been harder on anyone else than I have been to myself. To half-ass something that is supposed to be meaningful or special is just not something I can bring myself to do.

Even then, there are people who hate what I do, and I can’t do a single thing right in their eyes, ever, and their standards make mine look positively lax. To them, I am half-assing it, and I use that as a reminder to be compassionate to others when I feel like they’re half-assing it rather than putting in a genuine effort.

It’s too bad that I’ve never been able to turn that around and be compassionate to myself when my efforts fall short of perfection.

I do put out a daily blog (words.ladycygnet.com, for the uninitiated), but I just do that for fun–it’s not supposed to be profound or beautiful or even good–it’s basically a writing exercise while I attempt to hammer out a way to share word origins with people in the most humorous way possible.

But that’s the trouble with comedy, really. When I try to be funny, I’m not. When other people set out to be funny, they’re usually not. I get more laughs from a pratfall than I do from a cleverly worded turn of phrase.

And there are other things that I do behind the scenes that no one ever notices, and I doubt they ever will notice. I feel like a ghostwriter.

Or a ghost in general.

I’m frustrated. I’m beginning to feel like I have the heart that longs to do something worthwhile, but I lack the talent, and the reason nobody lavishes praise on me like they do on other people is because I’m unworthy of it.  Most of the time, all I think I’m good for is being a cook and housekeeper, and even then, I’m still not good enough, because my own private living quarters are in a state of ever-present encroaching chaos.

Clearly, my ego is getting out of hand, or this wouldn’t be bothering me so much.

Two professors who never agreed on anything else in their time at my alma mater agreed that I was a person with the spark to be a good writer.

Too bad that spark died sometime after I got married for the first time. I think it disappeared around the same time that the flourishing window garden I had in college and took with me to my first apartment with my new husband died.

And it’s my fault. Every bad choice I ever made led to something worse, and I don’t think all of the good choices I’ve made in my life will ever make up for the bad choices, much less give me talent where talent has been lost.

I have my daughter (who was the BEST choice I ever made in my life), and I fight for her, but beyond that, there’s not much left. I’m dating an amazing guy who has been wonderful at helping me sort out the broken bits of myself and reshape them into something that might be beautiful someday…but then I have stressful days like these that just burn the heart out of me and remind me that nothing I do will ever be good enough or make me worthy of anybody’s love–not my boyfriend’s, not my daughter’s, not my muse’s, and certainly not God’s.

If anything I did was worthwhile, it would be remembered.

But since it is not, I have not.

I feel like an utterly useless creation.  What am I good for?

I just don’t know anymore. I can’t even write worth a damn anymore. Every piece of identity I’ve ever had has been ripped from me, and I don’t even know who I am anymore.

And anytime I do get praise, it feels like a form letter, or like someone feels obligated to say something nice, even if they really want to tear me apart and remind me of just what a wretchedly talentless hack I am (as if I could ever forget). It feels hollow, and maybe that has more to do with me than it does with them.

Will this blog be perfect before I post it?

No.

And this is the reason: I’m venting.  This isn’t meant to be beautiful and polished; it’s meant to be an honest and real outpouring of what I’ve been feeling.

Maybe all of those people who told me that I was worthless and would never amount to anything were right.

And perhaps that’s all right after all.

For those of you who were wondering when this blog would be updated again, wonder no more!

This is it. :p

I’ve been pretty busy with The Root Cellar, my etymology blog.  I’m actually up to 106 posts as of this blog entry, and that translates to roughly a blog a day since I started it!  I’m pretty proud of keeping up with that.

I’ve also been rewriting a couple of manuscripts, one of which is a story I started writing on scrap paper during lulls in my shifts at work over 10 years ago.  It may not be worth anything overall, but I still feel like it’s an intelligent story that needs telling.

My daughter continues to excel, and her teachers and therapists are absolutely amazing. We’ve also recently gotten her a tutu, and she’s having a blast pretending that she’s Katerina Kittycat from Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.

In addition, I’ve had the great fortune of being in a relationship with one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever met. He’s brilliant, funny, patient, gentle, kind, wise, geeky, literate, talented, and loves spending time with me and my family.  My mother, stepfather, and daughter all enjoy having him around.  He believes in me and my career, and The Root Cellar would not exist if it hadn’t been for his loving support and belief. His steadfast heart and love have steadied me in times of turmoil, and I am truly blessed to be a part of his life.

And boy, have I needed it lately.

Now that I’ve talked about the good stuff, it’s time to talk about the bad stuff and how we’re managing to deal with it as a family.

I found a lump, and things were pretty tense until an ultrasound revealed that it was just an infection. Should I develop another lump down the line, though, we have a baseline that will help us determine if it’s anything of concern.  As I age, I worry about these things.  It was utterly terrifying, but I had the love and support I needed, and that gave me the courage to face it head-on and get the testing required to find out what was really going on.

Once that crisis was dealt with, my much-beloved next-door neighbor got the news that she has lung cancer.  She’s still fighting, but the chemo has left her week, and she has more gray days than anything else. We’re close, and she’s like family, so knowing that the days we have her with us are growing fewer make it hard to bear the notion that we may be losing her a lot sooner than we would like.

And as if that wasn’t enough of a blow to cope with, my stepfather was diagnosed with prostate cancer after a bloodwork screening at his place of employment revealed that his PSA (a blood test that determines prostate function) was elevated and a biopsy is done.  His doctor says that the cancer is aggressive and that my stepfather’s prostate needs to be removed as soon as possible to ensure that the cancer doesn’t spread, but my stepfather is seeking a second opinion, just to see if the surgery is necessary, much less necessary right away.

And then Ferguson happened.  So many people have so many misconceptions about that community and about black people and impoverished communities in general.

And for the longest time, I was one of them. Fortunately, living out here and interacting within the Ferguson community since we moved here has helped a great deal. The best cure for prejudices is keeping your mind and heart open while getting to know people whose life experiences and culture and knowledge are divergent from your own.  I pray for the people of Ferguson, and I pray for the eyes of all people to be opened to what has been going on behind closed doors there. Regardless of what Mike Brown did or didn’t do before he was killed, the case was handled poorly, and the people of Ferguson are suffering because the actions of a few (most of whom were not even part of the community) reinforced old prejudices about black people and those living in poverty.

It burns me that people are so comfortable living behind their walls of prejudice and refrain from questioning authority when it appears that authority may have been abused.  If we allow injustice to continue for the most vulnerable among us, who will stand up against injustices done to us when our time comes?

And after Ferguson happened, a man who was one of my high school youth group’s leaders and whose family showed me and my family great kindness when other families in our church were shunning us and doing their best to drive us away from God with their cruelty was in a horrible accident.  The building where he was working was being remodeled, and as he took the stairs to get up to where he needed to be for his job, they collapsed under him, and when he fell to the ground, the part of the weakened staircase that gave under his weight broke loose and landed on him.  He broke a hand and his pelvis in three places, and because he had internal bleeding and has type one diabetes, they had to wait until he was stable enough for surgery to work on his hand, much less his pelvis.  He’s off the ventilator, at least, so that’s a step in a positive direction after his accident.

And because life would be positively nice without more accidents, my cousin Mara, my late Aunt Ruth’s only surviving child, fell asleep at the wheel of her car after she got off of work and ended up in a wreck that left her in the hospital in serious condition.  Her cheekbones, nose, left eye socket, jaw, hand, ribs, pelvis, and L3 of her lumbar spine were all broken in the wreck.  Fortunately, no one else was hurt.  Unfortunately, she was not wearing her seat belt.

And again, fortunately, her condition improved enough that they recently decided to discharge her from the hospital.  She’s going to be laid up in braces, casts, and splints for quite a while, but she’ll be home with the people who love her and have assistance. She’s also has to go back to the doctor in two weeks to determine if she’ll need surgery to rebuild her facial bones.  I have no idea why they feel comfortable sending her home so soon after she was in such a precarious state, but I’m sure that the hospital has her best interests in mind. Fortunately, she had no brain injuries from the wreck and remained awake through most of her hospital stay, but she was in considerable pain.  I hope that they at least have her pain under control before they sign off on those discharge papers.

However, my sister’s child Rae was admitted to the same hospital (and the same wing) with pneumonia tonight. My daughter is still recovering from a nasty bout of bronchitis, and my brother-in-law has been down with pneumonia for four days now, so it appears to be the season of accidents and respiratory infections for the people I love most in the world.

Hope still holds sway, though.  We are the Oaks family (even those who weren’t born into it). We are stubborn and strong, and we refuse to give in when tragedy gnaws at the roots of our family. We are also believers in God, and our faith has sustained us in times of poverty and despair.  I have no doubt that God will heal my family, either by restoring health or taking them to a place where pain and suffering can no longer reach them.

It will most likely be restoration of health, though.  There’s far too much for all of us to do here to be sidelined for long.  We all have our walks and missions to light the dark corners of the world however we can.  Yes, I’m aware it sounds weird and could well be attributed to sleep deprivation and stress, but I still believe it to be true.  We as a family were meant to spread light and love, and the hardships and trials we face make us stronger and help us to learn to reflect the love of God wherever there is darkness and sorrow.  We can be light and awaken people to hope, if we try.

 

And now for an update:

“Grey Street” by Dave Matthews Band has long been my theme song because it reflects me so well.

And here’s a video for the canned version.  I wanted to use the official video, but DMB only has the live version posted to their YouTube account:

Grey Street

And here are the lyrics:

“Oh look at how she listens
She says nothing of what she thinks
She just goes stumbling through her memories
Staring out onto Grey Street
But she thinks hey
How did I come to this
I dreamed myself a thousand times around the world
But I can’t get out of this place

There’s an emptiness inside her
And she’d do anything to fill it in
But all the colors mix together
To grey, and it breaks her heart

Oh how she wishes it was different
She prays to God most every night
And though she swears He doesn’t listen
There’s still a hope in her He might
She says I pray
But oh that they fall on deaf ears
Am I supposed to take it on myself
To get out of this place

Oh there’s a loneliness inside her
And she’d do anything to fill it in
And though it’s red blood bleeding from her now,
It feels like cold blue ice in her heart
When all the colors mix together
To grey, and it breaks her heart

There’s a stranger speaks outside her door
Says take what you can from your dreams
Make them as real as anything
Oh it’d take the work out of courage
But she says please
There’s a crazy man that’s creeping outside my door
I live on the corner of Grey Street
And the end of the world

Oh there’s an emptiness inside her
And she’d do anything to fill it in
And though it’s red blood bleeding from her now,
It’s more like cold blue ice in her heart
She feels like kicking out all the windows
And setting fire to this life
She could change everything about her
Using colors bold and bright
But all the colors mix together
To grey, and it breaks her heart
Oh it breaks her heart
To grey”

While it may not be kicking out the windows and setting fire to this life, things are changing…for the better, I hope.

No, not really.  I haven’t had any in years.

And by any, I mean Cheez Whiz.  I make much better melty cheese on my own, especially with Hy-Vee’s version of Chipotle Ro-Tel.  Yes, it comes from a can–I am the epitome of good taste.  I am also too poor to be able to smoke my own jalapenos.  (And I’ve never really gotten the hang of smoking them.  Do I use a filter?  Do I light the stem end?)

Anyway, the title is a reference to what passes for a lyric in Beck’s “Loser.”  I’m not 100% clear on the history, but Beck apparently had some sort of bet about writing a song about nothing.  Given the success of Seinfeld, whoever made the bet with Beck should have known that he or she was getting into a sucker bet.

Also, “Beck” is one of my nicknames, but I’m not a successful musician.  I played the trombone anemically for a few years, and I like to pretend I know a little bit more than “Chopsticks” on the piano or “Au Clare De La Luna” on the recorder, but a wealthy musician I am not.

And Beck is a guy.  While I’ve been accused of being mannish (fortunately not by Austin Powers),  I am 100% female and have the offspring to prove it.

And my “Beck” is usually spelled “Bec.”  Why?  Because I believe in conserving letters.  Someone might need that k to use in another word.

Always thinking of others–that’s me!

Also, please don’t ever call me Becky unless you’re a blood relative.  That nickname reminds me of stuff I’d rather forget, and if you’re a blood relative, you know which stuff I’m talking about.

And does this rambling have a point?

And can I start a new paragraph with a letter other than “A?”

Yes and yes.  The point is that I’m running down the rabbit hole because I’m anxious.

Ah! Another a-word!

Affirmative!  A recent doctor visit uncovered some labs out of whack.  A more recent doctor visit uncovered a goiter. (Basically, my thyroid’s attempting to remodel my neck. It hasn’t gotten far, though.)  My most recent relationship failed because our priorities didn’t  fit together as a couple’s should.  I need to find a new home by August, or I’ll have to move back in with family, tail tucked firmly between my legs.  I need to find a new home for my senior cat because he’s decided that he doesn’t like small children and thinks that my daughter needs a few new piercings.  I need a job that actually pays me a living wage. (I’ve enjoyed following my heart and everything, but I would also enjoy being able to buy printer cartridges when I need them instead of trying to earn enough amazon gift cards to buy them online.)

I am also coated head to foot in a lotion designed by Satan himself to treat a rash on my forearms.  I’m not fully convinced that my new IM doc likes me, but if it works, it works.  Why head to foot?  Because it makes sure that the rash is treated and can’t migrate somewhere else for funsies.  It also forces me to do yoga to ensure my entire body gets covered.  I’ve almost mastered the Pretzel pose, and I’ve been able to do the Oh Dear G_d I Don’t Think It’s Supposed to Move Like That pose for some time now…and I invariably miss parts of my back.  One of the pitfalls of being single again, I suppose.

My daughter turned five and will be heading to Kindergarten in August, complete with her own paraprofessional.  (I would send her to school with her own parachute, paramedic, and paratrooper, too, but she already likes to fill her backpack with random stuff.)

It’s also getting harder to play Wurm, and they’ve upped the premium price, so that kind of sucks all of the joy out of it.  Wurm’s a MMORPG–the only time I run around roaring would be when I’m playing Tyrannosaurus Mom with my daughter…though I think that the spelling in that case would be Wyrm…maybe.

Sooo, I sit here, rambling, taking you with me as a fall down the rabbit hole and unravel everything that’s going on, preparing to like Penelope to weave it again until true love comes home.

Ah, who am I kidding?  Even if I find true love, I would have a better shot at learning to play guitar with my left foot than I would at stopping myself from writing.  Sure, I may not post it all here (and if it’s all like this post, that’s probably a good thing), but I write.  I’ve got something like 60000 words in a file that tell a cohesive story, but I’m afraid to shop it around.  Afraid it isn’t good enough.

Afraid I’m not good enough.

But it’s in my blood, and it’s in my heart.  And there are people who love me and believe in my stories.  They believe that this is what I was born to do.  They have seen what I write, the stories I tell, and how I tell them, and they think it worthy.

Sadly, there’s been a lot of damage to me.  Someone I loved and trusted stripped me to the bone before he tried to remake me in his own image, and I lost myself for a long time.  I know my name, I know my face, and I know every feature of my body, from the roots of my calico hair to the soles of my flat feet.

I know my family stories, the histories spread from mouth to ear down the the generations of children sitting in their parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and great aunts and great uncles and cousins’ laps.

I know the stories my mother and father read me, be they from the holy texts that shaped the faith I carry even now, or the mythologies and folk tales that made my eyes light up and  fostered my curiosity about what makes people who and what they are, whether single or in groups.

And as I write this, I draw back a little, startled at the passion that “moves sun and moon” stirring in my heart as I talk about the old stories.  It’s a spark that burns just as bright as when I’m researching something that has ignited my interest.  There’s no thrill quite like running down the rabbit hole of knowledge, seeking, finding, reading, digesting…and understanding at last.

Run from it all we will, but our stories, our histories, our roots…they shape who we are, how we react, and who we become.  The stories of others shape our understanding.

Before there was science, there were stories.

Before there were history books, there was the oral tradition.

And much was lost, since the oral tradition is like the longest game of “Telephone” in the world…but much remains, and it has worth, if only to understand what was.

Is there a point to all of this?

Eh, I imagine so.  There’s a point to everything I write, even if it’s just to point me in the right direction.

And yes, this is a small sliver of how my mind works, when I slow down enough to write things down instead of just sliding down the rabbit hole of thought.

And I also wanted to see how far this thread of thought sparked by a goofy song lyric would take me.  So far, it’s given me 1242 words of utter silliness.

I suppose I could say that I was deliberately shooting for a 1500 word blog entry, but that would be a lie, and I detest lying.

Besides, I think I’ve successfully achieved what I was aiming to do…which was to write a blog entry to finish on Monday.  The semi-stream-of-consciousness wasn’t a deliberate effort on my part, but it was just too much fun to stop.

And really, if you start out with a title like, “Gettin’ Crazy With the Cheez Whiz,” where else can you go but insane?

 

I’m just the quiet woman in the back, taking notes and trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.