Dog Days

No relief

Off the beaten path you find things…

We’re finally getting some rain at night but it doesn’t feel any cooler. The humidity has been stifling. We are not used to humidity here. Tomorrow is supposed to be the coolest day, with a predicted high of 84, but then we’re right back to the 95-100 range. I started having Oregon Coast escape fantasies but then I looked up the cost of living there.

I have had almost zero motivation. Not for writing, painting, or running. I have been doing some reading, actually reading two different books right now, Artpreneur by Miriam Schulman, and The Day After, by Brian Tyler Cohen. I did review my notes from Insa’s workshop. I have nearly drained my business account with all the costly items I work and paint all year to prepare for- insurance for my artwork, my Academy membership, and a corner booth for the Cheesman Park art festival in October.

I take the girls for their morning walk and then I work on things in the house. Today I did get out and paint for a while since it was not blazing hot, but things were not going well with painting. And last night I made the mistake of leaving four partially finished 8 x 8 wood panels out on the table and then it rained overnight. All the paint bubbled up and I had to scrape it off and sand it and start over.

The ruined 8 x 8s. They might turn into something interesting once they dry out.

I look forward to cooler temperatures to bring me back to life. That’s all I have from my world for now, except for this latest twist, which I’ll try to articulate below.

Saying goodbye from a distance

I spoke with my sister the other day, it’s been a few months since we last talked. She made a trip to Arizona to see our mom, our birth mom, that is. I don’t have a relationship with her at all. I was sick of the mental abuse and stopped all contact with her nearly 30 years ago. Now she is on her second round with hospice. First time was in 2020, she had COVID and no one thought she would make it through. But she did. Now she is on hospice again, and not so sure she won’t outlast the hospice benefit clock. My sister felt the need to see her, but I don’t. My brother has the most contact with her, he is her golden child. I didn’t even know she was back on hospice until my sister told me. The only thing that has changed is they’ve taken her off a lot of the meds she was on, except the ones keeping her comfortable.

It was always difficult to talk with my dad since he was so self-absorbed and constantly moving, he never stopped expending energy. But I could have short little snippets of conversation with him during meals, or on the rare occasion when he stopped to rest long enough. With my mom there was no such thing as conversation. There was a gap between us that was miles wide. I think if she could have gotten away with abandoning me as a child, she would have. I think that was her unspoken wish, that she could get rid of me. It took fourteen years before she got that wish granted, when I moved away from Pennsylvania with my dad and stepmom to Arizona, only to have her follow them out there a few years later. Fortunately I was graduated from college by then. My sister was the unfortunate child who had to live with her until she graduated from high school.

As completely dysfunctional as Dennis’s family is, his mom clearly loves her kids. I have done so much work over the years in therapy and all I have come up with around my mom is that I have nothing. The only feeling I have is that I wish she didn’t have to suffer, I do wish her to be out of the misery that this life has been for her. I have felt that for as long as I can remember since she’s been in poor health, which is most of my life. She’s had almost no quality of life for decades, from what I can gather.

It’s really mind boggling to see someone in such poor health who makes it to 83 years old (or maybe longer in her case). You look at people like the Pendejo and wonder how he’s made it as long as he has. My mom smoked, never exercised, ate nothing but crap, if she ate at all. The only things I ever saw her put in her mouth were a cup of sugar with a little coffee mixed in, and cigarette after cigarette. She drank for a number of years before I moved away, has MS, has a head injury, and here she is, sometimes I think she’ll outlive all of us. I know she had an abusive mother, and I’m sure her childhood sucked, and she wasn’t mature or emotionally stable enough to be a parent. She got married to escape her parents. But she never tried to be better or to break that cycle. I just wish her relief from this world, and the sooner, the better.