It’s not that I’m afraid of change or the inevitable elephant in the room that comes along with examining change: the fact that one day, I’ll have changed out of this state, out of this body and will have moved on to different things.  I guess FDR was right.  I think what I’m most afraid of is fear.  More specifically, the control that fear has over us.

It’s strange, but I think I’m often afraid of being present.  This should be something that we all strive for right?  I shouldn’t walk around in a haze, texting, talking on the phone, or daydreaming about places far away. Instead should focus on every moment, every step, every breath.  But what I find often when I focus is pain.  Not in some angsty teenage way or in a chronic pain–thankfully I’m very happy with the majority of aspects in my life–this pain is different and is so very interconnected with life.   So, the trick is how not to focus on the pain, how to move beyond it, how to wrench the control from its cold hands and cast it off with a loud guffaw.

I think that Maude (of Harold and Maude fame) was right, people do enjoy being dead.  I see it all the time.  People like to move from moment to moment involved in so many things that it numbs them to being present.  Multitasking seems to be the worst culprit here.  We often look at it as the epitome of effectiveness, but it’s far from that.  I have to watch myself with things like IM chats and facebook and opening too many internet windows at once, or else I skitter from moment to moment and don’t commit to giving friends and family and genuine people I feel connected to, the time they deserve (I suppose this includes myself too).  I suppose the same thing goes for the projects and such that I work on when I’m on the clock.

Just before my shower I read a brief short story that was meant to be graphic, visceral and intense.  It was all of these things and caused me to squirm just a bit in my seat.  I liked it in all its gore and disgusting grossness.  I liked how it ushered from within me a response that was somewhat repulsive.  After I read it I perused how culture measured it up.  This was accomplished through the comments left by other readers.  Ah Comments, the pulse of the internet.  Several people mentioned passing out at various parts or reading the story to others and watching them pass out.  Oh, if I were but so lucky.

I’ve only passed out once.  It was opiate induced and immediately following some faciomaxillary surgery to replace a tooth that genetics decided I didn’t need.  I was alone in our small home and I remember feeling an intense feeling of thirst.  I stood up from my bed and walked to my kitchen.  I remember opening the cabinet that held the glasses and feeling a wave of coolness pass over my body.  I breathed deep.  I think I realized that something was happening, that something wasn’t right when the white rushing noise began.  My peripheral vision was also fading and I began to focus, intently, on the mugs on the shelf.  I felt that if I could only breathe and think of them that I could hang on.

After succumbing to the darkness I must have fallen into bathroom.  I must have hit my head on something because it rang, though didn’t really hurt.  I quickly got back up and resumed my life, but first I got a drink.

I know that I’m afraid of pain, afraid of the control it exerts on me.  Afraid of how it makes me clench my teeth, makes me unwillingly tear up, makes me cringe.  Whenever I have any interaction with anesthesia it’s negative (a curse of my red hair, they say).  I wake up mid surgery or metabolize the drugs like it’s going out of style.  Novocaine lasts only about 35 minutes on me, no matter the dosage.  I’ll likely go through childbirth without any shots because they won’t work.  I can almost guarantee it.  So, if I focus on the present and the inevitable pain and suffering that is intimately bound with it how do I cope with the pain that follows?  I try to focus on my breathing, on watching rocks grow, or by tapping a rhythm out with my fingers (you’d be surprised by how ubiquitous music is in our society).

How will I ever get beyond pain and the fear of failure that comes with it?  I wonder.

So, today when I came home from work I looked at the overgrown lawn and realized that once again it was time for me to whip out the ol’ lawnmower. The yard at our house has been a constant struggle. As you can see from our house picture below, the grass that borders the street is dead and you can also see in the same picture our piteous attempt to revive it with our hose and a little sprinkler. I know it is entirely irrational to have a lawn in the arid Southwestern clime, but again, did I mention that it is not my house. Nightly, I awake, frightened and I remember, somewhere back in my wee brain signing a paper saying I would take care of the lawn. A. feels that that means it’s entirely up to us how we “take care” of the lawn (his version involves a magical xeriscaping fantasy complete with us spending lots of money). Being the destroyer of dreams that I am, I take the water the hell out of stuff approach and see what happens. Well, it has happened.

Our “hell strips” are covered with green. Green purslane, which is edible. I’m an urban farmer! Well, not really a farmer, I would consider myself more of an urban rancher.

When I first moved in two things bewildered me about my situation: First off, how the hell do you work a box filled with automatic sprinkler settings? Yeah, I still don’t know and thankfully A. showed up. Impending crisis averted. Secondly, the bewilderment of the lawnmower. It seemed simple enough and I could understand the symbols enough to see that it did indeed have gasoline. Good, good. But it sat intimidatingly on our porch mocking me and my inability to pull its string (which had previously broke and been knotted back together). One day I became fully aware that it would only be a matter of time before the property management company told me that my lawn was a fire hazard. It was time to conquer the lawnmower.

That was several weeks ago and once I realized that my lawnmower is, in fact, a sentient horselike creature things have been alright. Instead of suckling at stock tanks, he gulps on gas. He’s like an old camp horse, surly and ready to go home, not out on the trail, or lawn as the case may be. At first I used to jump at the various coughing sounds made on thick patches of purslane, but not anymore. Just like riders get used to the coughs of horses and their stumbles and pops, me and the lawnmower are working out our relationship. I get fewer blisters each time I mow and we’ve sort of gotten a rhythm going. So, imagine me, in a tank top, freckled shoulders glowing, mowing in the fashionable short shorts of today showing off my less than fashionable vampiric white legs…complete with cowboy hat. Truly an urban lawnmowing cowgirl with an edible lawn..that looks just enough like grass (when it is mowed) to fool the property management companies. Win!

Random thing I’m obsessed with right now: Hair pins!