September 22 - Goddards' and a Storm

Hey all, it's getting pretty exciting around here. I was all getting geared up to write an update about Charity. I've gone with her a couple times for check-ups, I've heard a little bit about the runaround with the insurance companies that she is with- she has two so they have been sort of fighting about who has to pay for what.

On Monday, the doctor finally decided that she could squeeze in one more treatment of chemo before the Feast. That started yesterday. It's supposed to go every other day but they already messed that up. Chemo is weird. It's a big room with big cushy lay-Z-boys. It was just surreal to be sitting with Charity on my right being fed anti-nausea medication so that the Chemo - that makes her hair fall out and her energy depleted - won't make her throw up. She gets a 2 liter saline and chemo mix that takes about 2 hrs to get through and all the time I have a clear view of the front desk that has a row of enormous candy jars on it. Not just one but 4 differant containers with the various ways to consume sugar and salt snacks and the nurses will bring you pop or juice or whatever you want.

I think Monday is also the last time that Peter called home, he has safely arrived in Bahgdad (spelling?) . Sort of ironic. He said how safe it was and nothing to worry about, this was after he had been fitted for his flak armor. It sounds like he'll be making an armload of money but working like crazy.

Diane is on the phone again with the insurance, we recently got back from shopping. She picked up some cheese, I returned a tent. I was going to go camping this weekend with a church group that I heard of but the weekend forecast is looking a bit dismal. Tyler is supposed to get 40 mph winds but earlier this morning the estimate was up to 70 mph. It was highly entertaining listening to the nurses, it was better than a news station. Relatives that are trying to head north out of the storm are contacting waiting relatives to report on the day long traffic jams. There is such a long wait and gas stations close to the hurricane path have run out of gas so that cars are stalled all over the freeways. They said that police have been driving up and down handing out a single gallon to motorists but that won't get them to a place to get gas. One nurse even said that they were preparing to evacuate motorists off the freeway by helicopter. Tyler is a good ways away but all hotels are booked and they are setting up more areas for evacuees. I told you that Diane and I went shopping today. We went to 4 gas stations, 3 were out of regular gas and the 4th was completely out. This morning Charity gassed up before chemo when gas was $2.45. Now it's $2.69 which I found is better than MN. Mom and Dad told me that gas went up a quarter to $2.75.

My flight isn't until Wednesday so everything should be said and done by then. Just to make it interesting, I got an e-mail from Travelocity today about Northwest (my airline) declaring bankruptcy (another word I can't spell) but they assure everyone that Northwest will be following through with all the scheduled flights. Even after gas prices go nuts again? Anyways, I was expecting a nice quiet visit with Charity. I was imagining a lot of bedsitting and quiet time. Sort of lulling and hand patting but we've been furiously scheming story ideas and cabin designs, dress designs. I've almost seen all the Monkee episodes ever shown and there's a few movies thrown in, a little shopping, a walk and at the moment Charity is off at work like she has been every day. I, quite honestly, have been more inactive than her. Sheesh.

All in all there's change in the air. The month is ending, Fall is coming, I will soon be heading home, and a lot more people are about to be homeless. I feel guilty. I am only a spectator. I'm curious to see what happens instead of what everyone thinks is going to happen but once the hurricane is gone I will be out of here as well and everyone else will be dealing with life's hard knocks. Sad. Talk to you later.

Love,
Rachael

December 5 - Brooding Artist Says Hi

For Brook:

Thanks for the nod.  I am just getting out of my home-again slump.  I seem to do this whenever I get home from long trips.  It's annoying and pretty lame so I like to wait till I'm on my next kick before I start sending off crazy e-mails.  There isn't much crazy about staying up till 4:00 watching Antique Roadshow and getting up at noon to jump on a trampoline - actually, that's excersize.  See, I'm passing that part now so I can write about it happily.  Very soon I hope to be on some other "thing"  I finally had my epiphany just last week and I am on a roll trying to get everything to work out.  I don't want to give too many details.  It's just talk until something happens but I'm helping Dad  right now with men's work, you know, clean his shop, kidding.  Well, I did clean his shop but he also taught me a little wiring and I've been helping to put up some walls.  Do you remember that he is building a 43 ft sailboat in our barn?  Well, now it's too cold for that so that project will be on hold till it warms up again.  We are, instead, insulating the garage.

 
 
Now, some people besides Brook are reading this.  I got an E-mail from Brook.  It was just a sentance or two but it was just encouraging and I began to update her on what I've been up to and then I realized that I might as well send out a mass e-mail.  I don't know if I ever did send a sort of a conclusion or what-not.  I think I just sort of got home and quit writing.  Anyways, it's about time to end all that.  Really, being home seems to get worse each time.  This is my sulking time when I reflect back to the time when I was in 10th grade and I realize that I really haven't changed, nothing matters, I am just getting old and it's all pointless.  It has taken me months to come up with a list of "things I have done while I have been back" and it's a boring list.  I think I already told you half of it.  Nah, I have just been doing homebody things.  I joined a book club that my roommate Bethany started and I joined a mail-order health food company with Dad.  I've been growing sprouts every week.  That means rinsing a tray of seeds twice a day, I really don't have a very active roll in the growing process.  I did a juice fast and yesterday Dad announced that he will be doing a juice fast so I spontaneously joined him for another go.  This could be interesting.  Bad part, I'm already hungry and this is the first day. 
 
I suppose my biggest project, besides finally going through all my stuff and packing it into the barn, would be a QUILT.  Yes.  Me.  Sew.  Luckily I have a very patient and unemployed neighbor who is also a quilter and she has been my tutor.  I now have the top all sewn and tomorrow I will start the actual quilting.  I don't think it will end up being as thick and puffy as I had hoped but it will be HEAvY.  I am putting a 10 lbs Italian wool army blanket in it.  I can't wait to be crushed by that on a cold night.  Actually, the quilting has been wonderfully theraputic.  It's scraps from all the dress-up clothes that my best friends and I used to play "olden days" in.  It's a log cabin design and in the center is a painting with fabric paint that Charity painted around the same time that we were still playing dress-up.  It's framed perfectly.  Every day I am reminded of her and all my childhood friends and where we are all at now and la-dee-dah the days look more productive and posative. 
 
I feel that I lack true self-discipline, the quilt has been good training, I was really proving how I was lacking for awhile.  I wanted to make better use of my time than to get a lame job.  It  didn't happen.  My goal was to create art and I haven't painted anything but a card.  That's bad.  It's also a little odd.  Maybe it isn't.  I think painting is a way of absorbing my surroundings but home is so familiar I have no need to absorb.  Instead I reflect.  Sheesh, I feel like I have read an armload of self-help books, 3 women books, the classic 7 Habits one, self-publishing, and Rich Dad, Poor Dad.  There might have been more but I lose track.  I've taken notes too.  The girly ones are pretty similar.  That's a relief because I wasn't sure how I would retain all that information.  Anyways,  being at home I feel frantic, desperate, lazy, and then that sort of spirals down towards self loathing which gets to be a real drag to fill mass e-mails with. It's been nice to touch base with my home friends.  They are pretty familiar with this rut of mine.  I sort of want to edit it out it but I am so excited when I finally get out of it that I want to brag about how I conquered all the obstacles that I put into my head in the first place. 
 
Well, I'm leaving.   My hope is to be out of here before my birthday.  I'm running from my age.  Unfortunately, that is quite a time crunch.  I might be able to pull out by my estimated departure  but if not then I should definately be gone by mid-January.   I do find that once I have a date set I can pretty well stick to it so it might work out.
 
So, IF I don't get called to Antarctica - I am still hopeful - but IF that doesn't happen and if my alternative plan to get to Antarctica doesn't work.  That one is a bit sketchy.  It's a little odd but if I could actually pull off plan B I'd be ecstatic.  It involves freighters and the Coast Guard but it could happen.  Plan C is the one plan that is more in my power, it doesn't  involve someone else's hiring decision.  Didn't I say that I wasn't going to talk about this?  Well, I'm fixing up my pick-up (hey Skittles) and I'm gonna go South.  I'll drive to Antarctica if I have to.  Ok, not that far.  Hey Charity, I might be coming to visit.  Maybe.  I'll tell you for sure by Dec. 30. 
 
You know, I just went to check when I wrote my last long e-mail and do you know that I haven't sent a heads-up since I was in TX?!  I can't believe that.  I guess I really was in a rut.  Or am I missing a more recent e-mail?  Didn't I tell you that Skittles got back from hiking the Pacific Crest Trail on the West Coast? Didn't I tell you that I got my wisdom teeth out a couple days later- in order to be condsidered for Antarctica?  That's how we got to hang out, I had chimpmunk cheeks and was all dopey on Vicadin.  That's also when I was doing my 7 day juice fast.  That was a fun week.  Didn't I tell you that Skittles ran off to Alaska to make oodles of money so that he can hike his final trail, the Continental Divide?  He'll be a Triple Crowner.   Didn't I tell you that I bought his little pick-up?   He pretty much gave it to me to cover his first month's rent in Fairbanks.  I'm so mean, taking advantage of broke hikers.  I had my hefty fishing pay check.  I think we're already making plans to hike together again and then I'll cancel those plans again.  Wait, are we Skittles?  Well, whether there's really plans or not I just said it 'cause it sounds funny. 
 
I'm thinking that I did write this all awhile ago but it was lost in the computer at my aunt's and I think that sort of prompted me to quit communicating.  See, after I flew in from the Goddards' in Texas Dad picked me up at the airport and we/I drove up to My aunt's house (arriving 3 am) where Dad did some deck additions and I learned how to can tomato juice and run a chainsaw.  I got to feel all homesteader-like.  I think that sort of finally prompted me to make my quilt.  I got into that domestic stuff the last time I was home for an extended period of time.  That time I bought all the quilting supplies and cut my play clothes up into strips.  I've known for a long time that I would make them into a log cabin quilt.  I've been planning to make a log cabin quilt since I first saw the pattern in 5th grade.  The downside of quilting is that it suddenly turned me into an old lady.  Seriously, two days ago I was on my hands and knees trimming edges on the floor with my mat and pizza cutter when I realized my back felt a little sore, once I tried to straighten up I realized my back was actually crippling sore.  I've been hobbling ever since.  I get out of a chair like I misplaced my walker.  I even had to do light duty in Dad's shop, I coudn't bend down to cut insulation.  I am getting better but it's so weird that it would even last this long.  I didn't do anything strenuous.  Maybe I jumped on my trampoline too much.  Mom did that the first day I had it and could barely bend her legs for a full day.  I've been "rebounding" every day though.  Whatever. 
 
There's some murals to paint that went nowhere.  I did paint Bethany's house before it snowed.  Does that sound like something I've already told you?  The lady that wants the murals and I are too much alike to get any plans set in motion.  I figure I will have plenty of time when I plan on sticking around longer.  There's also talk of illustrating a cookbook with a friend.  I was going to make that my project for the winter, maybe I still will.  I wanted to be able to have it in print by early summer.  It still might be possible but once I finally refocused I realized that I was still set on leaving the state of Minnesota. 
 
Other little things. . . I got to see my scrapbooks displayed at St. Coud State University.  I did a presentation for the nursing home residents about my first solo trip.  I showed them my sky diving video.  There was a women's conferance hosted by a church that I'm not part of.  The highlight was sipping a martini with Rebecca while we unloaded our woes.  Thanksgiving was nice.  I think it helped me on my way to being productive again.  There's no incentive like shame as you explain to people that have known you from birth about your jobless-couch-potato routine.  I was also really surprised at the effect that seeing my Aunt and Uncle's house had on me.  This is the house that I think explains my infatuation with log cabins, olden days, and living Amish (an obsolete dream from before I realized that Amish was a religon).  When I lost my focus for future plans it even affected distant future plans.  The one-room-log-cabin goal, I once again figured, what's the point?  Hard work, taxes, politics and you still wither away and die, ah yes, maybe I really am a brooding artist.  Ooh, THAT'S what I have been doing, it's not sluffing off and laziness, this has been a winter of brooding.  Anyways, stepping into that familiar house again melted away all those bad thoughts.  Their kitchen is warmed by a wood cooking stove.  There's colored glass on the windowsills, sheepskins on a rocking chair and it's just cozy, so wonderful and cozy.  I was reassures that that is still what I want in the long run.  It's the home I don't have yet. 
 
Ooh, and that brings me to a little clarification.  Mom and Dad will be reading this e-mail and I have been thinking of that the whole time and I really didn't want them to think that this had anything to do with them or this home.  Not at all.  To be home is to revisit childhood.  I am so happy to be with Mom and Dad and I get to play "only child" since Ben and Casey are more independant than I am and are living in new developments in St. Cloud.  It's great and wonderful, familiar.  I get to have long conversations with my parents, to be educated about life.  I like having all my posessions and knowing that they will be there when I get back.  I'm catching up on all of Mom's meals that I missed and picking on Dad, holding Winston (he's on my lap right now).  Being home is like going through all my things that I have collected from childhood.  I found my class rings, diary entries about crushes, sappy drawings, old photos, awards, etc.  I am reminded of who I was and how it has shaped me and how I am still the same in so many ways - which I find so aggravating sometimes.  This home is "the good old days".  This home was made for me but it isn't the home that I created.  I didn't pay for it, didn't work for it.  I don't choose the decorations and I'm not responsible for the maintenance or cleaning.  I have as much responsibility as when I was 15.  I feel useless.  It's such a relief to be helping in the shop, that Dad thinks I'm capable enough to run a tablesaw.  Mom and I had this conversation before and I think Dad understands as well.  I liked how he explained me.  I don't have a plan and I am back to the beginning as if I never left, as if I am watching life pass me by.  Yep, that's my frustrations.  I hope I'm clear enough.  See, this is why I was avoiding writing in the first place!  How was I supposed to explain all this?  Especially before I had come to these realizations?  I confuse myself so much.  What are my motives?  My intentions?  What are my REAL motives and intentions?  Blah, blah, blah, on and on, soooo deep, whatever.  Brooding.  The point is that this is home but it's not my future.   I need to contribute towards my future.  I'm finally moving forward again so you'll be hearing more from me again.  Talk to you later and thankyou for all the kicks in the butt that each person that gave, knowingly or unknowingly.  I needed every one of them. 
 
Love,
Rachael