Cause & Effect

I've been stuck on this post for days now.  I've had so much going on around me over the past few weeks that I feel as if the world has somehow shifted speed or changed the direction of its axis.  It's a feeling of such overwhelming dizziness that I've had a hard time maintaining a steady foothold on my world around me.   There's just been a lot happening over the last few weeks that most people, I believe, would have a difficult time maintaining equilibrium.

The first event was learning my youngest brother in all probability has lymphoma.  Two weeks ago, he had surgery to remove some nodes from his abdomen for biopsy in order to learn exactly what type of lymphoma he has and start treatment. The biopsy was inconclusive.  The tissue the surgeon removed was not lymphatic but instead spleen tissue slowing growing on his abdominal wall for over thirty years.  The false readings and the subsequent removal of the wrong tissue are the result of Matt having an emergency spleen-ectomy after falling across our front steps when he was seven and ripping his spleen in half.  He almost died from internal bleeding. 

A few weeks ago I found out that a friend of mine had to go in for a biopsy.  She found a lump in her breast that her doctors wanted to check out.  She was supposed to go on a Monday to have it done, but the doctor's office screwed up and gave her the wrong address on her appointment card.  Luckily she was able to have it rescheduled for just a few days later and the tests results came back negative.  She doesn't have cancer.  There was one breath taken.  Now we're just waiting for the results of my brother's biopsy.  Hopefully I can freely breathe again in a few days.

I've also been in contact with family members that somehow (OK I do know how) I've not been in contact with in years.  It's been a bittersweet reunion.  It's nice to hear from and chat with someone that I have missed having in my life for all these years.  But it also brings back some painful memories and times from my childhood.  Not any fault of their's, but by association and the largest of those looming over everything is  Dad's death.  That one event did more to bring about those rifts as anything else as our families tried to deal with the very personal loss that each individual experienced on their own.  One event, one story has many viewpoints and each person will see something that only they will understand - or not - and deal with it in a manner that only their life experience will allow.  As my cousin gently reminded me, not only was a father lost, but an Uncle and a brother.

There have been many sleepless nights over the past few weeks. Lots of tears shed, emotions swinging from elation to anger and back.  And honestly, I'm exhausted.  But some good has come from these things, these events.  I think that some family ties have been made stronger.  (When you think you might lose those you care about, there's a tendency for that to happen if you're smart and feeling.)  Friends that may have taken a back seat to the more mundane aspects of my day are more of a priority now.  But the most important lesson from everything that has transpired is this:  What is in the past is just that, in the past.  The only thing that matters is the present as now is the only period in time that I can discern what is true about life's events.

Covered Bridges, Fuzzy Bunnies, & Back Roads

Last Sunday, we traveled with our friend Kim to the Parke County Covered Bridge Festival in Rockville.  Robbie said that he had never been and neither had Kim.  It probably had been about 10 years since I had been there last.  The amusing part is that once we got there and walked around awhile, Robbie & I finally remembered that I did take him there in the second year of our relationship.  If you have the chance to go there it's a great way to see authentic Indiana and eat your weight in carbs.  Hell, go to Rockville/Parke County whenever you get the chance.  It's a beautiful drive, the town is charming and it's a nice little break when you're from a larger city.  http://coveredbridges.com/

What amazes me most when I'm there is how much of the town has never been modernized like so many of the "donut" towns around Indianapolis.  Don't get me wrong, Fixing up the town squares is a nice thing as it preserves history in a way that many people in the late 60's and early 70's would never have done.  "Urban Renewal" was the way then, and we are much the poorer for it.  Because of "Urban Renewal", Muncie now has this ugly monstrosity of a building that replaced the old Delaware County Courthouse.  With it's gun-slit windows, and concrete form squatting on concrete columns, it isn't that distinguishable from many other government buildings of that era.  Maybe in another 50 years people will come to look at that type of architecture as something wondrous in its simplicity.  I for one, will not be among them.  Amazingly, I discovered while researching the Delaware County Courthouse that the courthouses in Rockville and Muncie were designed by the same architect, Brentwood S. Tolan of Fort Wayne, IN.  Tolan designed a similar courthouse for Kosciusko County in Warsaw, IN.

This is the south face of the Parke County Courthouse, which is a curious mix of Greek Revival and Second Empire architecture.  I would imagine that if you were to show this picture to anyone from around Rockville they would immediately recognize the building they were looking at.  Even when you go for a close up of the clock face, there is something entirely singular in it's design that many would instantly recognize. (As an aside, does anyone know why there is a Star of David on all four clock faces?)

But, this isn't a discourse on 19th vs. 20th century architecture, but rather  it's more about the trip there.  How going there always takes me to places in my mind and heart that I thought were long gone.  Like that the first time I went to the festival was with my mother and brothers in the late 70's.  It was a different time for us then.  We were still a family, small and a little broken, but still a family that was silently grieving the loss of our dad just a few years before. 

Little has changed with the festival in all these years.  They still wrap tents around the east and north lawns of the courthouse square in which most of the vendors are located.  You can still buy small jars of home-made apple butter, hand made blankets and throws, any number of country craft items or even a brown bunny made of the softest blanket material I or Riley have ever touched. When Riley saw the bunny, she grabbed it from Robbie and had a grip on it that told us that we were buying a fuzzy bunny.  She's slept with it every night since then.

The food vendors are still on the south and west lawns where you can still eat anything from pork chop sandwiches to persimmon pudding and everything else in between. They have homemade ice creams sold by the Boy Scouts, handmade crullers from the local Catholic Church, authentic deep fried pork rinds, spiral cut potato chips, cinnamon rolls... I could go on, but my stomach is starting to growl.  Just about anything you can think of as a Hoosier staple can be found there.  The only thing not found are anti-acids, but you can get those at the Rexal across the street.

Throughout the town, mainly on US 36, are various vendors, yard sales, and antique stores.  There is usually a logjam of traffic along the highway coming into town from both directions.  I take the back roads in and out of Rockville for that very reason.  Both ways take you through Marshall which is "famous" for the Marshall Arch.  It's an arch with Marshall painted across both sides of it, spanning the main street through town.  The arch is supported on either side by prairie style columns.  I remember seeing it as a small child, but couldn't remember where exactly it was.  (I couldn't read at that age, therefore I couldn't remember the name.)  It was a bit of serendipity when I rediscovered it about 14 years ago on one of my infamous shortcuts.  I don't mind driving a few miles out of the way if it means avoiding heavy traffic.  Plus the back roads usually afford a more visually appealing route - especially this time of year with the autumn foliage in full color.

It was the route I chose coming back home that became the most memorable for me.  Our trip back took us by Russellville and through the towns of Roachdale (yes, a real town in Indiana), North Salem and Jamestown.  It was a bit of an accident really that we ended up going that way.  I confused Indiana 236 with 234 and drove back to Indianapolis via a different route.  I ended up taking a trip back along the memory highway as well.  These were the towns that my parents grew up in and around, and they would take us through them from time to time when I was a small child.  With Riley asleep in the back, Kim silently knitting next to her, and Robbie dozing in the passenger seat, I was pretty much alone to go through the memories that came bubbling up from the depths of my mind.

It's amazing the amount of things I've forgotten over the years.  I didn't remember anything specific about the route between Marshall and Roachdale other than I had been on it several times a long time ago.  Roachdale is where memories as well as emotions started flooding in.  My mother had spent a portion of her childhood there.  And I think she still had some relatives around there that we would visit from time to time when I was a child.   North Salem is where Mom & Dad had friends who we would visit all the time.  With North Salem only being about ten miles away from Advance, it was an easy trip.  And Dad liked taking his Sunday drives.  Sometimes we would just take trips literally to nowhere for no other reason than just to drive.

Maybe unconsciously I took the wrong road because of what is going on with my youngest brother and his health concerns.  I find myself desperately trying to remember anything true from my childhood.  The older I get, the more it seems that maybe what I remember growing up really didn't happen to me.  Sometimes it seems that I've somehow mixed up my childhood with something I've read a while ago.  Maybe it was just a way to grab back some of my forgotten childhood and reconnect the lines and dots that make me who I am.  Driving through those towns was a way for me to remember events and emotions long forgotten.  Or maybe, just maybe, it was just a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon with the family I now have.

The Book That Took Me 17 YEARS To Read

I finished a book last week that I started more than 17 years ago. No, it wasn't "War and Peace." But I did wage my own war with this book off and on for those 17 years. I originally bought the book as a beach read for a trip to Sarasota Florida. I have a brochure form St. Armand's Circle as a bookmark from that trip. The date on the brochure? 1992.

I may have purchased the book even before then. The author is one who I had enjoyed from a previous work and I probably bought it in a bargain bin somewhere since I was a penny-less college student. And yet, while I loved his previous works, this one couldn't grab my attention past a certain point. Yup. I thought it was a pretty boring read much to the chagrin of my many friends who absolutely loved it.

Over the years I've picked it up several times determined to finish is only to give up in the same place. I just couldn't get in to the story. Some people have been critical of a certain device that the author used with the subject of the story. I found it a little distracting, but that wasn't the reason I couldn't go on. Simply enough, I just didn't care. Nothing really grabbed me and made me want to continue with the story. Meh.

So, about a month ago I picked up the "bane of my existence" and gave it another shot. I took it with me to read at lunch so that I wouldn't have any distractions this time. (Beaches, I've decided, are not the best places to read something of this nature.) Before I realized it, I was past the point that I usually gave up. Oh, I still didn't care about the characters or the story at this point, but I didn't hate it either. Besides, what else is there to do when you eat lunch by yourself. I'm not a snob, but I just need a break from people during my day.

The further into the book I got, the more I became intrigued and found myself taking a few extra minutes each day just to read a little bit further into the novel. And once I realized where the tale was going, I was completely in awe of how the author had built everything up to reach the inevitable climax of the story. Not one thing was superfluous to the story. That, my friends, is some mighty fine writing.

And once I finished that fine piece of craft, I was left with two thoughts. One: I was genuinely sorry that I had finished it. I loved it that much. Two: I couldn't have finished it before now. It took me to get to a certain state of spirituality and comfort with my beliefs in God to be able to be receptive to what the central theme is. I think what the book tells us is that there is a purpose for everyone - some greater than others - but all of us are still a very important part of that design, and that there really and truly no random happenings in our lives.

So are you going crazy yet to find out what I read? I'm sure that some of you probably have guessed by now and are saying "See! We told you that you'd love it!" OK smarty pants. You were right. The novel that took me over 17 years to finish was none other than "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving. If you've read it, then you know why I love it now. If you haven't, pick it up some time. Take your time. I promise (as so many promised me) that you'll like it.

What? Me? Worry?

Yup. I know it's hard to believe, but under this cool, suave exterior is a puddle of anxiety ridden worry. I've always been that way and it makes me crazy. I can't tell you how many times I've awakened in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, on the edge of a full blown panic attack. And not even know why.

For years people and doctors have said to me that I just need to learn to let things go. I've been told that exercising will help relieve anxiety. That I should try yoga. Deep breathing. Controlled breathing. Meditation. Prayer. Alcohol. Sex (my personal favorite). And the very best piece of advice is that I should just stop worrying so much. Um. OK. You really think I haven't thought of that?

Well, I just found this story online that confirms what I've suspected for quite sometime... I'm just hardwired that way. If there is something to worry about, I will. There are times when my mind will grab hold of an idea or perceived problem and just like a pit bull locked on a chew toy, it won't let go.

Even as a child, I worried about the usual things most kids worry about: getting dirt on my clothes, if I'll be left behind at the store, the Viet Nam War, and the Apocalypse. That last one has been perennially on the top of my "List of Worries" since Vacation Bible School taught from The Book of Revelations the summer between my third and fourth grade years. Seriously, anything by Stephen King has been a bedtime story since that summer.

Here's the link to the New York Times article. It's nice to know that I'm not crazy and really can't stop the worrying. At least not without being medicated. You'll have to cut & paste the link to your browser address bar. I'm not tech savvy enough to figure out how to make it a click-able link.  Since I first wrote this piece, I've discovered that Blogger now has the capability of letting authors insert click-able links. (updated 10/16/09)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/magazine/04anxiety-t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&en=14888d0e85f163b7&ex=1270008000