Snail Mail Carries Love

 "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." 

                                                                                  Anais Nin

I'm sitting at my desk looking at two envelopes. The kind where someone had to go out to a store, look for one they liked and buy. Then take it home, write something, seal it, find a stamp and a post office and mail it.

Yeah, snail mail.

Not quite the Pony Express, but close. The only real difference is the current delivery system doesn't eat hay.   

I have them propped at the back of my desk side by side. They resonate love, and I'm a sucker for that. And the willingness to go to all that trouble to send me their love in a card, and I'm a sucker for that, too. Emails aren't at all the same thing. Both have return addresses, so I know the pink one is from my brother and yellow from my sister. I am faintly surprised that my handprinted name, juxtaposed so closely together, is remarkably similar. Endearingly, they both included my middle name. Only two others still living do that: my sons.
 
Just a few weeks ago, I had all my family with me, sleeping under my roof for the first time in 20 years. I had the same delicious feeling of peace then. All was right with the world. My family was together with me. Hallelujah.

I have treasured these letters since they arrived, a couple of days apart but both mailed the same day, well ahead of my birthday. Just a year ago things were entirely different. My big sister and I were at odds and my hapless big brother in the middle  trying futilely to make peace. 

At the beginning of the last reunion.

He brokered a sibling summit a few years ago to let go of old grudges, change attitudes and become loving, supportive brother and sisters. For the first couple of days, we enjoyed the mountains, the meals & playing liars dice in the evenings. Then the chip on my shoulder got set off by something my sister said and we were back to belligerence, suspicion and animosity. Sigh.

Then I moved. Not just from Canada to California. Not just from a cave-like basement to a sunny duplex in a community of friendly folks. Or from hermithood to next door to family. I moved my attitude by taking the Landmark Forum the first weekend of 2013. I learned a lot of tools in three days to help explain who and why I was and why I got consistently identical results being who I was; tools I still use to see things as they are and not as I want them to be.    

I saw, suddenly and with horror, how I had treated my sister forever. I cringed that I had unquestioningly bought into a family legend that she was imperfect and troubled that allowed me to treat her with arrogant superiority. 

The instant I saw this revolving scenario of our relationship, I was aghast, ashamed of myself, compassionate toward my sister and grabbed my cell. I blubbered that I was so, so sorry and promised I would never, ever treat her like that again.

Poor soul, she was totally confused at my out-of-the-blue call, dumbfounded by my admission and gobsmacked at my tearful promises.

After a bit, when we'd both calmed down a bit, she thanked me.  "Nobody's ever told me that before," she said.


That hit me between the eyes: What would it be like to always be the bad one. The one who makes the mistakes. The one who fails. The one who needs help. The scapegoat. And I'd bought into it. Little sister with chip firmly on shoulder.

I am forever greatful to Landmark for those three days. It took that long to get over myself, get the concept and move into a new relationship. Suddenly I had the possibility of having a sister. A real one I can call and talk to and who cares. And a brother who doesn't have to be in the middle anymore. The three elders of a family. 

Back to the envelopes. I have gotten cards from my sibs before, but never with the emotional vibes I get with these two. Connection. Love. And anticipation, because we're getting together  next month and are all looking forward to it. 

For the first time in our lives, I believe. 

My birthday is Friday. I get to open the cards and read the words they wrote and chuckle at the clever cards they like to send. 

I may just keep the envelopes on my desk for a while. 

It's never too late to connect.

Past 64 and No Longer Counting

Rappel course leads to full scale canyoneering. Can't wait!

OK, I started this when I was looking at Official Old Age from below.

Looking at it from above is an entirely different matter in many many ways.

I was in a safe, sensible, small Canadian community. I hiked mountains, played tennis and pickleball, snowshoed, exhibited photos in art shows, sang, drummed, did balloons and face painted and most precious of all, had the WGG (World's Greatest Granddaughter) on sleepovers where we learned to navigate steep and/or icy trails without slipping (taking small steps),  climb and swing in all the playground parks, take discovery walks, read books, eat ice cream  and share cinnamon buns.We were just getting into liking the same movies when I left.

I could have felt safe and secure: I had universal health care and government pensions, for Pete's sake. Instead I felt increasingly closed into being over 64. Amazing, but there it was.

So I moved away. About as far away from a tiny Rocky Mountain Canadian town as I could get...to Los Angeles.

Where I rappel and hike, and sing and dance and do things like moonlight kayaking and tide pooling with mixed groups of like-minded folks via the best use of the Net since emails: meetups.

Meetup.com is global, and growing. Its time has definitely come. I actually joined in Canada, but didn't use it much in a small town where you pretty much know somebody who knows somebody for any crazy activity you care to do.

Newport Harbor for the June super moon.

LA has almost half as many people as Canada, the country. Meeting folks is hard to do and not advisable where you spend a lot of your time: on the famed freeways. Meetups connect tennis partners. Hikers. Photographers. Kayakers (or pub crawlers, art appreciation groups, movie fans, do gooders, adventurers, volunteers...there is a saying that if you love to knit but only have an hour from 10 to 11 a.m. on Tuesdays to do it, you can find a Meetup for that). Nobody cares if I'm looking at 64 from above or below, they just care if I can keep up. And if I can't, I find another meetup where I can. I've flashed-mobbed at a major studio, climbed the hidden stairs of LA, tide pooled, hiked Joshua Tree...and I'm pretty much a rookie.

This move was my hardest yet, not just leaving the WGG and the length of time I was alone on the road down, but in terms of leaving lots behind and starting over here. Meetups mean I won't spend the first year or two doing everything alone. You may meet soul mates on meetups, but mostly you just enjoy the time you're together in company. You may see them again on another meetup, or you may not. Doesn't matter, you will meet more lovely, like-minded folks at the next one. Those who aren't lovely or like-minded can get their names stricken off lists by those who organize the events.

So I rappelled. Fifty-five feet down a sheer cliff in the hot sun. It was scary. The other lovely, like-minded folks were scared and brave to varying degrees, too, but we all made it down. Went off to have pizza and a cold beer and some laughs, then home. If I need a 4 mile walk, I can sandwalk on Monday evenings on the beach. Or speedwalk a 4-mile trail through an ecological reserve early on Saturday mornings and have the rest of the day to get things done.

I'm hooked. What a grand idea. The Net bringing folks together in real time. Love it.

Letting go...

Her ears began drooping a few weeks ago; no one knows why...

It's been a long while since I posted. Life happened. For those of you who are new, fair warning: this will be about cats and death: bail out while you can.

Since I left 64 a while ago, life has right turned north and south, the last time in December to LA to help my son and daughter-in-law with their foster-to-adopt baby. I took a week to drive down from Canada because I was tired of driving 14 hour days to get somewhere fast. I visited friends on the way down and got to the infamous 405 at 5 in the afternoon. Angelenos will know what that means, but basically it took 90 minutes to make a 30-minute drive to my new home. Five minutes after I arrived, the kids got the call and 20 minutes later we were the proud foster family of a 9-month-old girl. OMG.

What prompted me to blog again was that I've hit a Letting Go section of life that I was ill prepared for - that most of us are ill prepared for, I think. Maybe it's losing the baby; as a foster it's always a possibility and did happen once, but we got her back. However, this is about cats.

Letting go is not just moving half a continent away from friends and family and the familiar, it's long-time friends who die unexpectedly or face a diagnosis of death. It's losing Mom and realizing how precious it was you had those last visits to reconcile and get in that last, great, loving hug.  I had no hesitation when they called me and told me Mom was fighting the breathing mask, wanting it taken off. I said she knows what she wants, don't waste any more time, go and take it off now! She'd been ailing since a bad bout of pneumonia 8 years before and the savor of life had been getting thinner for her. No one knew or expected her to die within five minutes, but I am so glad I was home, near my phone and able to support her decision.

Now I'm making the decision for my loving kitty. It's a different decision with a creature who can't beg for her mask to be removed.

Pretty Kitty

I had no intention of adopting a cat in 2002. I'd been mulling the option of a companion for my 7-year-old companion Cowboy because I was working long hours as the assistant editor of a daily and thought he would appreciate company. I just happened to go to the pet store on rescue adoption day. A woman and her two daughters were making much of a ginger tabby kitten while a prim, black tabby kitten sat alone in a giant cage that a St. Bernard could have jumped around in. Milk-tipped feet placed daintily together, long, black-striped tail wrapped neatly around her, head up, ears alert, she stared at me with the biggest eyes I'd ever seen. Before I knew it, Cowboy had a companion.

She can't bug me here

The next decade I would torture her with two major relocations: one to Canada and one to LA. I would leave her for long periods. I would allow her outside, knowing she would never stray far from the front door. I couldn't train her to a leash because of her agoraphobia, but she was always my dainty, pretty kitty, nearly silent, shy with visitors until they'd been around for a while, loving to me. That Cowboy was not happy with a companion was plain: he bullied her, pinning her tiny body to the floor by her neck, leaping higher than she could to get away, stealing her food.

Fat cat

Then she outgrew him and returned tit for tat. I yelled at her when she leapt on top of him when he was sound asleep, provoking a mad squabble of flying fur and loud meows. When I realized the resulting hullabaloo was his only exercise, I left them alone.

Two years ago, when she was 9 and Cowboy 17, I stopped attributing her weight loss to the lite cat food I'd been buying for adult, indoor cats -- and became concerned. She wasn't eating the special food. She wasn't eating much of anything. She was starving. Canadian vets took blood & still didn't know what was wrong. Gave me pills to give her. She seemed to get better, but then stopped eating again. I took her to a different vet, who took more blood and an ultrasound. Suggested it was cancer. I asked her to make sure, thinking they would just take a sample or something. She came back with a negative on cancer, a feeding tube and a diagnosis of lymphoplasmacytic cholangiohepititis. I fed her 6 times a day through a tube that plugged regularly with a syringe that stuck regularly, coating my bathroom, her and me in high protein cat food, and gave her 6 medicines several times daily.

Skinny is not better

The tube plugged permanently and we embarked on a year of Getting Kitty to Eat. A year of steroids and a running account at the local Global Pet Food store trying dozens of brands. She seemed to get better, then not. More vets, less weight. Started feeding her high protein food by spoon. She was docile, compliant, gulping it down as best she could with no appetite. Took her to the vet and she'd gained 3 ounces. Dared to be hopeful while the vet took her away for blood tests. 

Then the vet said there had been an "incident." Miss Kitty had been her usual compliant self, then began meowing loudly and breathing heavily, opening her mouth to gulp in air. Her panting was at a furious pace. Had this ever happened before?

No. And I vowed it wouldn't happen again.

Enough. Like Mom, Miss Kitty was tired of the tests, the chemicals, the handling, feeling lousy. She had been as good as she could be, and what she needed was to enjoy the time she had left. So we set a time a week away and I took her home. I've been giving her all the food I wouldn't let her eat when she was healthy: cheese, milk, yogurt, meatballs, tuna, tamales - if she'll eat it, she gets some. She never eats much and keeps most of it down, although the shrimp from Bubba Gump's came back up, but it was battered and in cream sauce. But whatever she wanted, she got.

She was in ketosis, a state where your body is starving and uses its fat reserves for energy. Except Miss Kitty doesn't have any fat reserves. My Dad had Alzheimer's and when he forgot how to eat, he was allowed to quietly starve. The quality of life is highly questionable on forced feeding. We'd tried appetite stimulant pills. She spent a day being agonizingly hungry with no appetite to eat anything. My quiet, tiny-mew kitty was in-my-face meowing constantly, all day and into the night. I stopped the pills.
 
We passed a quiet-for-her and tearful-for-me week that way. I considered how to let go: a drip at the vet's, a place where she's already suffered through an extreme anxiety attack, or home, eating whatever she fancies and fading away.

Letting go -- when we don't want to, but trying to do it in the best way for the sufferer, not us - is part of life now. I hope, pray and trust that someone will do the same for us when it's our turn to let go.