The Last Day of Summer

At the end of the day two cats sit in the window, sunset facing, while my husband walks the trash to the curb.  Two fresh bodies are tucked into bed.  Two still-dirty ones stretch the last minutes of daylight in the yard. 

There was some discussion this morning of knocking out a wall in the upstairs of our house.  Common sense prevailed though (No new projects right now, thank you very much!) and the cool blue sky drew us outside. 

We moved a pile of wood, cleared up a patch of land under the big pine tree.  The kids built a fort, tag-teaming lumber from the garage to the very space we were clearing, under the big pine tree. 

The dog found a toad, who became a pet. 

Lucky, he was rescued from the dog. 

Unlucky, he will spend the night in an old fish tank. 

Dead flies, worms, pieces of fruit, the lid of a peanut butter jar filled with water, all of these served as offerings for the toad.  Still, he seemed to be without appetite.

I chopped some wood, throwing the axe out over my shoulder, missing half the time, aware of the vulnerability of my toes exposed in sandals.  Every once in a while I hit home and the wood snapped with a satisfying crack – worth the effort it took.

The wood pile behind the garage grew slowly, a long stretch of Lincoln Logs strung together, wobbly.  I hammered nails in the kids’ fort.  Hooks for the hatch-door.  My daughter knelt on the ground with wire cutters snipping chicken wire which became a window. 

By the end of the day, the oldest boy built a zip-line which, failing to zip, turned into a log-launcher.  And we all left the dinner table, measuring tape in hand, and stood staring at the old wooden stairway that runs through the heart of our house.

“Could we turn it into a slide?” someone asked.

My husband turned to me, a light shining in his eyes. 

"It’s 14 feet," he said.  "You can buy a 2x12x16 ft. board for about $30."

“Will we? Will we?” the kids clamored. 

"Maybe," we said, "it'll be a winter project."

Happy Labor Day!

How did you celebrate?

Thank You (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

(This past week marked the one year anniversary of my admission to a local Psychiatric Hospital due to the sudden onset of severe panic attacks.  I took this picture of the outside when I went back this week for a routine appointment.  You can read more about my journey by clicking on the anxiety tab under Topics.)

Sometimes we must talk about darkness in order to better talk about light. - Kelly Chripczuk

Palpable fear, fog descending on the brain, blood pressure slipping and sliding while the extremities go weak.  Dizziness, anxiety and an unbearable desire to flee.

This is what I felt this past Friday morning walking into the lobby of the Behavioral Health Unit where I was hospitalized last summer.  I was there for a routine Psychiatrist appointment.  

I wasn’t feeling well.  Tired and stressed from a long week of classes, I had a brief dizzy spell in the morning.  I wondered if something was off with my blood pressure – it can tend to run low. 

As I drove, I thought about asking the psychiatrist to check my blood pressure.  She’s a medical doctor after all and, at the least, she could call in a nurse.  I pictured myself in her office, with that black cuff around my arm.    

What if they sent me to the ER?  The same ER where I waited for almost twenty hours last year before admission. 

What if going to the ER caused me to panic? What if I couldn’t stop panicking?

I spent the whole thirty minute ride to the hospital psyching myself out.  By the time I got there, I was jacked up on anxiety.

 

After parking, I pulled out my phone and took a few quick pictures of the "courtyard" - a small fenced in area where supervised low-risk patients could take a breath of fresh air in the afternoon and evening.  

Entering the building through double glass doors, I crossed the dim, brown interior.  Facing the receptionists’ large cubicle, I worked hard to force words out of my mouth in a stream that seemed natural.  I wanted to run back out into the sunny blue day.  Instead I sat and waited a good twenty minutes.  I picked up a magazine and read fluff articles about combating clutter while talking myself down.    

On the drive home I was physically sick.  I kept an eye on the shoulder looking for places to pull over and vomit.  A headache formed behind my right eye and stretched its way down into my neck and shoulders.  Thirty minutes later I ran into our empty house and knelt on the floor dry-heaving into the downstairs toilet.  My kids were still out picking berries with a friend.  The dog looked curiously at me. 

When the nausea passed I took some Ibuprophen and sorted laundry, placing the kids’ new school clothes on clean white hangers.  Exhaustion hung around me like a shroud, sleep was all I could think of, but I was scared to sit down, scared to lay down, afraid anxiety would pull me under.    

Finally I walked out the back door and into the yard.  The grass here is brown in patches, scratchy like straw, starving for rain.  I sat down on a little slope facing toward the garden and flowerbed.  The dog flopped down beside me, panting and squinting in the sun.

I leaned back onto the ground, my arms outstretched on either side, palms down into the grass.  The grass pricking my hands reminded me of the summer before, when I stretched out in the grass in the fenced in hospital yard.

“Thank you,” I said, aloud.  The words sprang unbidden from my lips, pure, like water from a deep, cold spring. 

I was home and the earth was solid and the sunshine warm.  No one  was there to hear me.  But I’d like to think the dog and the browning grass and sunflowers nearby nodded their heads ever so slightly in agreement.  

(Friday was the worst day I've had in a long time, but I'm happy to say it's passed and after some good rest, I'm feeling much better.)

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  

Homesick

 

I’ve not often been homesick as an adult; not homesick in a desperate, find-me-a-train-or-bus-or-airplane-out-of-here-or-else-I-will-walk sort of way.

But last week I spent six days locked-in at the local behavioral health unit due to severe panic attacks.  I needed to be there, especially in the first few days, needed the space to receive care, to rest (as much as one can in a hospital), to find healing in all the ways available.  

As I grew in wholeness, the stress of being in the behavioral health unit also grew in proportion so that my anxiety shifted its focus from the stressors that put me there to the chaos and occasionally fearful nature of the unit itself.  I missed my children terribly, missed nature, familiar routines and privacy.  

I colored a lot, filling in mandalas with the bright yellow and red of colored pencils.  I slowly read and re-read lines out of Barbara Brown Taylor’s newest book Walking in the Dark, carrying it and my pencils with me like a talisman.  I melted into my husband every time he visited.  Sitting side-by-side on my narrow twin bed we both stared straight ahead sometimes talking, sometimes not.  We were stunned by our circumstances, unable to see past the moment.    

Behavioral Health Units are driven by a strange combination of rules and chaos – you cannot have shoe laces, pens, chap stick or cold medications without enduring a mountain of red tape.  You will see the Dr, a therapist, a nurse, but you will not know when or even where and it’s possible, if crisis arises (and it will) you will slip to the bottom of the list of needs again and again.  

By the sixth day I'd heard no mention of my own discharge and I feared that my desire to return home would be thwarted by both rules and chaos.  I was ready to go home, though and ready to advocate aggressively on my own behalf.  

I made my own follow-up appointments and presented them to my social worker.  I quoted a staff member who said at the morning “Rise and Shine” meeting, “This is a very stressful environment.”  But most of all, I told my therapist, with my hands pressed against my chest, “I just want to go home to my beautiful life.” 

I was homesick in the best way.  Homesick in the way that allows us, if only briefly, to see the beauty of what is by the sheer light of its absence.  

“Then let’s get you out of here,” he said.

I am so blessed. 

I returned home that evening to a world of lush late-summer beauty.  I ate pizza on the porch with my husband, picked cucumbers and watched the light move across the golden-tipped field of corn.  I waited for my friend to bring our kids home, standing near the end of the driveway as the hour grew late, ready to walk to get them if they didn’t show up soon. 

It’s been five days now and, yes, the kids are back to driving me crazy.  The house is a mess, the laundry never ending and I am so physically and emotionally tired and overwhelmed at times that all I want to do is cry.  But I carry within me still the light of absence forged by time away.  That light falls on both the sublime and mundane, illuminating it all with the beauty of home.  

I want to thank everyone who's expressed support and encouragement during this difficult time.  I continue to remember with compassion those at the hospital who had no home to return to, no family to visit.  May God have mercy on us all.