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Duck hunting this weekend on the Gulf. Details to follow. 

G called me to tell me she dreamt she had 7 toes. I told her I dreamt that two friends were making fun of me and driving to the point of rage and that I started screaming and screaming in my dreams till I woke myself up. Anxiety, baby, she said. I told her it’s the crawling out of the skin variety. I said ducks will help, they always do. She agreed, being a little ducky herself. 

I skipped Pilates to pack for the duck hunting trip and ended up going to see friends for a little champagne and chit chat. We turned out the lights and looked at the Christmas lights and talked about things to come. Where to hold New Year’s Eve – what to do for Christmas day. Last year, I volunteered along with five million other people and don’t want to do that again. Mom isn’t working like she normally is on Christmas day. We got no closer to a plan than when we had started due to an overwhelming feeling of the holiday blues amongst the crowd. 

In order to fight the mood, we turned the music up and did what we always do – dance.

Roy has come and will bring me to way out in the Gulf where I can be at one with nature and myself.  

That’s it – I hit my quota today – first day in a week that I haven’t been crying about my own heart’s longings and I’ve now processed three phone calls from friends who are all up in there with grief and longing. Is it that time of year? For godsakes, why does the absence of light, the advent of postcard perfect holiday images, and an overall heaviness in the air dictate that we all get depressed and weepy at the same time. Friend number one sees herself missing in the postcard perfect family portrait. Friend number two is grieving over the breakup of a relationship that she thought would end in marriage and instead ended in a rageful fit of her stuff being put out in the driveway in the pouring rain. Friend number three is sad because she has broken up with the person she wants to be with but cannot. 

It’s a good time of year to check your expectations at the door and be grateful for what you do have.  

I went the other day to have a calcium scoring CT scan to rule out asymptomatic coronary athreosclerosis. My dad died from heart disease. Two brothers with stents. My doc says heart disease biggest killer of women. 

The heart is wonderful organ – able to survive heart breaks – just not plaque. 

As my dear friend struggles to come to grips with her daughter’s special needs, I try to inform her of an outsider’s view. She says a friend sends a photograph of her child a few weeks older than her own and she sees her laughing in the tub, trying to stand up and realizes her own daughter’s retardation. I say I see photographs of my friends’ children particularly at this time of year and want to throw myself down on the floor and cry my ever loving heart out for every child that I couldn’t have. 

The perfect life is way overrated. 

She says to me that “I feel the loss of the path that I thought we were on” and I say this is the path you are on and that it’s not perfect is what informs it. I send her footnotes on Kenzaburo Oe’s A Personal Matter – his son Hikari born with a brain defect and Oe’s rebelliousness over accepting this as his fate – Hikari’s later musical accomplishment – who can know what awaits us – perfection is not what it you think it is, it is what you don’t expect that gives you so much pleasure your heart bursts with joy. 

Our duck hunting trip almost got cancelled because of a storm brewing in the Gulf – all I could think is that the duck hunting trip was my escape from the storm brewing inside me. I long to be on the water, headed away from my daily routine. Last night Swirl hosted Women and Wine, I told B, I’m sick of women and wine, so she left me T, her little man, trying to survive his bad diagnosis of cancer – he showed up with a plastic collar that gave him a rough and tumble look. I told him when she left that he is one lucky dog to have had her in his life. The storm is passing and we’re back on for this weekend at sea.

Storms never last, do they Baby?