A New Normal?

I don't have a giveaway put together yet.

I'm disappointed that I haven't made it there yet. My readers are so important to me. I read all your comments. More than read. I devour your comments. I wait for your comments. I even sometimes track down your blogs and read and read. I love that people find value in my ramblings and my projects.

I've had quite the week.

I lost two days last week to the new medication. More on that later in this post. Then they called and asked us to speak on church on Sunday. In the LDS faith, we have a lay clergy, so we take turns speaking. We spoke before we left our last ward, and they really like to get you going and coming, so they asked us again when we moved into our new ward. I actually enjoy speaking, but I generally like to have more than three days notice. David and I decided to sing too, which is added pressure. So, I had a talk to write, and then give. Went pretty well. David spoke first, which made me cry. Then we sang, and then I cried though a lot of mine, but managed to make it through ok.

Saturday was Lagoon day for David's company work. A magazine asked for some last minute work (due tomorrow, still working on them). Then my sister and I got invited to an amazing cooking class in Layton (an 1.5 hour drive) on Tuesday night, which was another incredible and delicious experience (more on that in another post I'm sure), and then we headed back to go to the midnight showing of Eclipse (I know, I know, bad feminist. Warning, slight spoiler ahead: Actually, my only major issue from a feminist point of view is when Edward disconnects Bella's truck to prevent her from seeing Jacob and then tells her it's because he's worried about her safety. Can you say abusive and controlling much?)

Image from Here

Sigh. My give away never made it to the top of my to do list. I'm going to get there. I am.

In other news, I'm feeling so so so good on this medication. I did get a migraine yesterday. Not surprising with all the stress lately, but it was my first in a week, which is a lot less often then I have been getting them.

I feel great. I feel like my old self. I feel like I did when I was a teenager, which I think must be normal for me. It's really hard to tell, because I've been not normal for so long. I'm suddenly very silly.

Like yesterday, I was getting ready for Eclipse. I had half my hair clipped up on my head while I'm straightening it, and I was wandering about the house, doing something else, and Maxton tells me my hair looks silly. My eyebrows go up.

"Oh really? You don't like it? This is my new hairstyle? I love it. It's very funky and cool. It looks like a dead animal."

At this point, I start petting my hair.

"I named him Seymour. He's my pet. I like him. Would you like to pet him?" I bend over. "Yep, and later, I'm going to put tuna in him, so he smells really gross, and them I'm going to rub Seymour on your bellies, so you stink too. Don't you think that's the best idea ever?"

Yeah, my Xander and Maxton are giggling hysterically at this point, because they are boys, and they are seven and six years old. And it doesn't stop. I randomly come up with this stuff all the time. I'm not sure if that's normal me, of if I'm so damn happy I'm not feeling depressed all the time now.

And the other day, I'm walking downstairs to watch a movie with David, and I see this beautiful tree lit up by the setting sun, and it's beautiful. Time just stops for a second, and I get so full inside. I feel lifted up, divine for a moment. I used to feel that way about nature all the time. It's been years since I felt that way. In Emily of New Moon, the title character has a similar experience and she calls it the flash (sort of funny considering later comic book characters, but go with me here). I knew exactly what LM Montgomery meant when she wrote about Emily's flash. It's like communing with God through nature, but more that you're a part of the earth, connected to it, one with the beauty of it and its energy. I can't describe it better than that.

This picture isn't that great, owing to the fact that I took it out the window this morning, whist wearing my underwear, and so it's really cropped and the wrong light, but I thought you might want to see it anyway. Least you can't see me in my skivvies. David, I can hear what you're thinking.

People, I haven't had the flash in years! Years! (Considering the proceeding paragraphs, there are all kinds of directions my dirty mind is going with that sentence. Oh, the possibilities of humor. I'll let you decide how to interpret it and I'll leave it alone.)

I told David about it and pointed out the tree. It's a bit more yellow than normal. David sprayed trees for a summer at one point in our marriage, so he knows a bit about tree health. My tree is iron deficient. Perhaps that's why I relate to it, having been iron deficient myself at several points in my life.

Anyway, I was thinking about this normal thing and how weird it all is as I came home from the gym on Monday, and I had an idea for a poem. I have composition books full of (bad) poetry from when I was a teenager, and yet only a handful of (bad) poems from my adult life. Another example of how not normal I've been.

I can't believe it's taken me so long to get something that works for me. I hope I can continue to find things that work. I feel like a miracle.

Anyway, here's the poem I wrote. And yes, our second car is acting up, and we've quit driving it for now until we can figure out what is really going on with it. Hopefully the adage that things break in threes is right, because after the AC, the dishwasher and the car, I can't take anymore. At least my brain is better for now.

Normal is slippery.

Last week, a wire failed
in my husband’s car.
When he was going 60 on the highway,
it showed 90,
and when he came to a complete stop in our driveway,
it showed 45

I feel like a broken speedometer. Is it normal
to cry a little every night? Am I broken because
I can’t stand the texture of rice? or because the white pieces around the rim
of an orange slice prevent the explosion of plump juice in my mouth,
an experience I had so long ago I can barely remember it? Or am I out of order because I wait till the last second to pee, then walk calmly to the bathroom,
hiding the way my bladder presses as full as the orange I won’t ever eat?
Is it normal to inwardly roll your eyes at every demand of your six year old? to never feel hope?
Or to lie a little in each poem?
My baseline is all out of wack.
I need an adjustment, a tinkering, an instruction manual,
(with clear definitions of normal bathroom and sexual practices).
I’ve not been my own normal in so long,
I can’t gauge my own normal,
(the needle jerks and bounces, and stops and starts, like riding a bike with flat tires
clump clump. clump clump.)
let alone my normal compared to everyone else’s normal.

Normal is slippery.