"Unbridled Mirth": A Remembrance

Yesterday, my grandfather would have turned 89. We celebrated by going to church and, later, spending sunset in the bowl of grass by his gravestone. I thought I'd continue the celebration a bit longer by posting a brief excerpt from my (still-to-be-fully-revised) memoir manuscript, in honor of Frank Logan Asbury III. 

June 30, 2012

My Dearest Claire,

I enjoyed with “unbridled mirth” the Father’s Day card and “poem” which you sent me on 6/29/12 – particularly the “fishy” nature of the “take me to the river” language!! – As hot as it has been here the past week I would be simply delighted to have you or others “take me to the river and drop me in the water”!! You are becoming completely skilled in your poem composing!!

Mason is off to New Orleans for a few days to do a little “courting.” We miss you here, my darling girl! Encl. is some monetary support!!

I love you – as do we all!

Pop-Pop

Ever since I could remember, five humongous fish had been mounted to the wood paneled basement walls on plaques. Their scales, fins and bugged-out eyes had been frozen by glaze, and a child – which I was then – could easily fit a fist into their open mouths. In this immobile state, they appeared much more alarming than I imagined they had been underwater. Pop-Pop loved to go on fishing trips with his Emory buddies, and these mounted fish were his trophies, and his company as he watched the game, snapping at the players as if he were a sideline coach. In his study upstairs, one photo showed him in his mid-fifties, wearing a slicker and knee-high waders and looking supremely pleased as he hoisted two fish as long and thick as his own arms.

In homage to his fishing prowess, someone (most likely one of his sons, who had inherited his sense of humor) presented him with a Big Mouth Billy Bass for my grandparents’ golden wedding anniversary. Billy Bass was a rubber fish mounted on a plastic plaque made to look like polished wood. When one of his young grandchildren eagerly pressed the button, Billy Bass twisted the front part of his fish-body and serenaded us with the songs “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and “Take Me to the River.”

Whenever a family birthday came, he would retreat to his study to compose a poem at his large wooden desk. Since four of their five children lived nearby, birthday gatherings were normal, on the back deck in spring, in the dining room in winter. After my music teacher aunt pitched “Happy Birthday,” Nana sliced the grocery store cake and silence would fall as he recited his original composition in honor of the lucky recipient – sometimes a limerick, sometimes a Shakespearean iambic, sometimes free verse.

For decades, he cheerily held court among his large and growing family, among the dogwoods and azaleas, beneath the high ceilings and grandfather clock’s deep clang, in the white brick three-story house they’d called home for more than fifty years.

The Friday Five: Good Tired

No April Foolin', I'm sure glad it's Friday. Here are some moments and memories that have been saving my life. What about you, friend?

1. Generous parents. Last Saturday felt like a true spring cleaning day, with major help from my folks in the yard work department (I forgot how much I enjoy pulling weeds... majorly therapeutic). Thanks, Mom and Dad! To repay them, I made chicken pot pie and Mom brought berries and whipped cream for dessert and we all sat around our dining room table with tired limbs and full stomachs. The best kind of tired: Good tired.

2. Easter Sunday. I've already written about this, but just to repeat, it was wonderful, as it always is. Some friends then hosted a delicious potluck brunch. Good tired.

3. Spring walks. We're walking in the evenings again! Our street is full of blooming yards and sleek sunlight, and it's such a lovely ending to the day. Good tired.

4. Women's small group. I love my ladies (and our resident baby), our laughter, vulnerability, affirmation, and encouragement. A much-needed hour of my week.

5. Remembering Matt. My high school friend Matt passed away this week after three years of battling cancer. I hadn't seen him in about ten years - basically since we graduated - but I have many happy memories of his humor and kindness. Matt was voted our "class clown," but he was far more than that. His wit ran deep, his smarts were evident, and he was easygoing and friendly to all. I've spent the week digging up memories and photos and reconnecting with several other high school friends. It's made me really sad and simultaneously very thankful that I knew Matt, and that my high school experience was a good one because of people like him. Thanks, old friend. I'll never forget you.

Honorable mentions: My awesome coworkers, delish Sean dinners, a new Headspace meditation pack on anxiety, our soft red fleece blanket, rain, yellow daisies on the porch, and this moment right now: Friday night, Parks, and homemade pizza, after quite a long day at work.

Good tired.

A girl gets up at three A.M....

It was three in the morning last Friday when I got up to go to the bathroom - but didn't get much farther than, "Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow..."

Somehow, I had moved in such a way that sent a sharp pain splitting down the right side of my neck. And it wouldn't quit. "Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch..." I hobbled to the bathroom - yes, it felt like hobbling, even though my legs were fine. My ability to move at all suddenly felt incredibly limited.

"You tweaked your neck," Sean said in his matter-of-fact manner as I stiffened my whole body to lie gingerly back in the bed. "I've done that before. You'll be fine."

"I will?"

"Yep."

"But when?"

"A few days."

"A few DAYS?"

"You'll be fine."

(Marry a calm person, y'all. It's a gift.)

As he drifted back to sleep, I lay awake, experimenting to see which angles of movement hurt (lots) and how far I could turn or nod my head (not much). How had this happened so quickly, by doing something so normal? This pain was going to change my whole day, I just knew it. Good thing we were off work anyway. I'd need to call in to see the chiropractor, and I wouldn't be able to drive myself over because checking my right blind spot was suddenly not a thing I could do. My self-exasperation rose. If I had waited a few minutes to get up, or gotten up earlier in the night, would I have gotten up in a different way, preventing the tweak? Couldn't I rewind just thirty minutes and be a bit more intentional about my movement? But of course, how would I have known to be?

As I made breakfast and very carefully puttered around the kitchen, I grew increasingly aware of how restricted my mobility had become. I had to turn my whole body to the right, rather than simply twisting in that direction. Any sudden movement - even one that didn't seem like it would involve my neck - spurred a deep twinge. "Ouch!" I could feel myself start to tighten up in other places, sending messages to other body parts: Don't swing your arms too much! Don't reach up too high! Don't bend down too low! 

I was shocked by the pain from my body, thankfully something I haven't had to deal with much. But I realize that my brain actually has a history of doing this. It's called anxiety. 

I've never been officially diagnosed with anxiety, and I know that many others experience it even more deeply than I do. But I know it's there. Out of nowhere, something shifts (tweak!) - a breaking news headline, the phone goes straight to voicemail, a door creaks, the siren speeds down the road behind our house... And I go tense. Maybe my body moves normally, but my brain is suddenly stiff and my gut fills with rocks, because all I can concentrate on is what's wrong something's wrong what if that something wrong is about to come slamming into my life... Nothing else will do. Nothing else to do. I have to concentrate on the potentially terrible, because if I don't... well, I don't know what, but it can't be good...

At least that's what I thought for a long time. Or maybe I didn't really think - I just did, I just felt, I just rolled with the unending cycle of what ifs that would suddenly pummel my mind. I stiffened at even the thought of pain or change. And sometimes I still do. But I've learned that there are ways to slowly climb out of the cycle. Which brings us back to that head-twistingly painful last Friday...

Ask for help. At 6:35 a.m. I left a sleepy, desperate voicemail at my chiropractor Pat's office. "I know I haven't been to see you in over a year, but..." In terms of my body vs. my mind, help with physical pain can sometimes be easier to ask for than help with mental struggles, but even if that help is a call to my mom, or a text to a friend, or talking to Sean, then that's a start.

"Don't move so rigidly," Pat told me as I sat in her office a few hours later. "Stiff movement to prevent pain is only tightening everything else. Move normally." If that isn't a message to my busy brain, I don't know what is.

Find externals to support the internal. Pulled neck muscle? Ice and Advil, stat. Anxiety mode? Meditation. Movie. Journaling. Texting to ask for a prayer. Going for a walk. I haven't needed medication at this point, but everyone's different, and I know it helps a lot of people.

Stretch into the discomfort. This one is tough for me sometimes. I took the list of neck exercises that Pat gave me on the way out of her office - the same sheet of paper she's been giving me for nearly twenty years of tight neck muscles. I've never gotten into a rhythm of doing them. Why? They're not hard and they probably take fifteen minutes, tops. Maybe I'm stubborn - and/or maybe I've been in a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. My neck is always going to be tense. I'm always going to be anxious. Not necessarily true - if I use the tools I've been given. So far, I've done the neck exercises twice this week.

Locate the source of the tension - that seems important in body and soul matters, too. I found the muscle causing the majority of the tension and tried to loosen it best I could - and it started to help. There was some sense of comfort in just knowing which muscle it was. I just started a new Headspace "pack" (what they call 30-day meditation sessions on different subjects) on anxiety, where they talk about "noting" - paying attention to whether anxiety is caused by thinking or feeling. Simply noting which one, not dwelling on it. 

Patience. My favorite! (Or not.) Patience with my body, patience with my mind. "It'll go away," Sean keeps saying, and he's right. It's already mostly gone. But there's still a remnant of pain - just like there's often a remnant of anxiety hovering near me. I'm pretty much used to it. And with these lessons and tools, and people to support me, I'm learning that what comes on so suddenly, be it a muscle tweak or a moment of unfounded fear, should be noted but not dwelt upon. Not a day ruin-er. I'm slowly learning to loosen up and to pull gratitude even closer, so that it blocks anxiety's view, and reminds me that I'm lucky to have the ability to move and stretch at all.