Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Fear’

Ear Bug

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

There is a constant buzzing in my ears. Inside the house, it’s manageable; outside it’s another story. Shall I start from the beginning?

The Bride and Groom had scheduled a trip and we were all IN to be working grandparents… and granddog parents of course. Then it hit me – a sore throat. Why is it that ever since the pandemic, getting a common cold feels like a death sentence? I tried to keep my distance from the Grands – we ordered pizza for dinner – Bob did the driving – dog walking was passed down to the Bug and the Pumpkin. The problem is, Maple, the black/mix/killer/rescue dog, is on one mission and one mission only: she is single-mindedly determined to

Eat as Many Cicadas in One Walk as She Can Find!

“Ewwww Nana,” my granddaughter said, “she ate two cicadas while they were mating! and I could hear them screaming.” If that’s not a Hitchcock film in the making…

I tried to make light of the Bug’s budding fear of bugs. After all, I’ve picked hundreds of ticks off of dogs and children (and myself) over the years, and they can find some pretty strange places to burrow. I was proud of the baby Bride when we moved back to NJ because she was the only one of her friends who would pick up a daddy longlegs. We were country people, people!

But here we are, living in a semi-genteel southern city that has been attacked by cicadas. Granted they don’t bite, or transmit a horrible disease, still they are dang ugly, and LOUD. Their chorus is around 100 decibels in TN, akin to a Harley only not as nice. We still have our old windows in our new cottage so I can hear them humming all day. It’s like I have chronic tinnitus, with a cold to boot. When I venture outside to water the garden, the trees are shimmering with them and the noise is no joke.

I’ve swept the patio, picked them out of my new patio poufs, and we’ve been in charge of the neighbor’s pool while they are away which means Bob is routinely skimming around 50 dead cicadas every day from their filter. But the last straw was on Sunday when I was swimming with the Grands. I sent Bob home with the kiddos so I could finish my water exercises. I was so deeply grateful to be back in the pool, the water was warm and the sun was shining after a week of rain.

As I was getting out of the pool, feeling the weight of gravity return, a cicada flew right into my right ear!

It was screeching to get out. I was screaming for it to get out and banging the other side of my head. Somehow I knew not to put my finger inside my ear, I guess some medical knowledge does rub off? I grabbed my towel and ran into the street not caring what anyone might think of this wet haired swim suited crazy banshee woman. But in the few minutes it took to run across the street and find Bob, it must have flown out. After a quick investigation with an otoscope, I was pronounced cicada free!

Last night the adult children returned, and now we must pack for our next trip to Italy! I wonder if they have cicadas in Tuscany?

Read Full Post »

Fear of Falling

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on January 30, 2024| 2 Comments »

Turns out, my fear of falling has not subsided. It was only my fear of leaving the house – when ICE is covering everything outside my door – that was on full display last week. But fear has been creeping up gradually; the hesitation, the tenacity when crossing a threshold, looking down instead of up. It seems that overnight I’ve become really really old after falling off a ladder that resulted in an osteoporotic pelvic fracture. You might say my fear is well deserved! But, a generalized ‘fear of falling‘ is bad for your health.

Dr Jim, my psychologist brother, sent me this article from “Life Spark,” a purely wonderful, mid-western company that delivers comprehensive senior care, in home and out:

“Fear of falling is a gradual, insidious spiral,” said Julie Varno, Physical Therapist – Case Manager with Lifespark Home Health. “It might start with a fall, but not necessarily. Either way, you become less active, which leads to weaker muscles and stiffer joints which, in turn, affect your balance and your ability to react. Then an  uneven sidewalk, a misplaced area rug, or an excited puppy can put you at risk  for a fall…. According to some studies, having the fear without the fall is actually more limiting than having multiple falls…”

https://lifespark.com/overcoming-the-fear-of-falling-to-age-magnificently/?utm_campaign=Seek%20On%20Blog&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=290919488&_hsenc=p2ANqtz–6BgMBnXz_u28LZ3is8OMJ5K8pRnDCnkYUElx_Dqsf0zEDIk74cl61-t-PE4VgsMG1HH7aPnqN5W3ObJlGpVGcdf5ROCTjEa2UueYil-YaxnIAa00&utm_content=290919488&utm_source=hs_email

I’ve fallen over Ms Bean. Twice. Once I was carrying a load of laundry and just stumbled right over her, luckily keeping my balance. Did you know that brown fur blends beautifully with wood floors? The other time I was leaving the table on my blind-side, and hit the floor with a plate in my hand. Nothing broke! I’ve fallen off a stair landing in the darkness of dawn after just moving to Nashville. I fell feeding the birds on our Germantown rain-slicked deck. And then, there’s the Malibu fall.

My sister Kay suffers from Meniere’s disease. It is an auto-immune, inner ear problem resulting in vertigo so severe your world could start spinning at any time. She’s had surgery and lost hearing in the affected ear. Pushing 90 years old this Fall, she has had her fair share of falls but she won’t let that stop her. With metal in both hips, and seemingly in her blood, she walks outside with her walker nearly every day, cruising the upper-east-side like a Dowager Empress.

I suppose if I asked Kay if she fears falling she would say something like, ‘I can’t stop moving.’

“I can’t stop moving!” Simple but oh so sneaky. As we age we adapt – we move into a one-level home so we’re no longer climbing stairs, or we put up a grab bar near the toilet so we don’t engage our quads. I’ve been walking more in our neighborhood now that the ice is gone. And I’ve signed up for a T’ai Chi class at Vanderbilt to work on my balance. Plus, I can roll out the yoga mat and go through all the PT exercises I’ve ever learned.

But fear is an emotion. It’s a mind problem, not a physical one. And I’ve read that in order to overthrow a democracy, fear is the first, most potent weapon – fear of others, and fear of the dictator himself. I’ve often wondered what Republicans fear about Mr T, or is it his followers they fear? I heard that a child in a metro school had a swastika carved into his desk. Are we becoming a nation that runs on fear? Fear of good people not voting due to apathy? Fear of being the one guy in the crowd who keeps his arms folded when everyone else is saluting? Does fear make us obey in advance, before being directly told?

Watching E Jean Carroll on the talk show circuit has eased my feminist fears a bit. She hit T where it hurt, 83.3 Million Dollars worth of pain. And when she looked down on him from the witness chair, all she saw was a big, fat “ZERO.” Carroll is my shero. She was afraid to face him in court, but she found his toddler antics and his sycophant lawyers had turned him into an Emperor Without Clothes. My fondest wish is that his followers wake up.

Of course if I do fall again, knock on wood, I’ve got an outstanding medical team!

Read Full Post »

Strangers in the Night

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Memoir, religion, Roman Catholic Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Have you ever heard strange sounds in the middle of the night? Not like squirrels in the chimney, or mice in the walls. And not like thunder and lightning followed by a deranged dog trying to crawl under your bed. More like footsteps out on your porch at 4 am?

Well, that’s how our weekend began. Someone was clomping around on our porch – but let’s start from the very beginning.

On Friday I really wanted to see the Groom. We’d called, texted and Zoomed and Facetimed, but he was finally out of the Tower and back in the bosom of his family. I had to make sure he was doing well and warn the Bride not to expect too much; he needed to rest after all. Covid can take a lot out of a person. I mean just walking to the mailbox could be exhausting.

But you can’t keep a good man down for long because on Friday he had already been teaching the Love Bug how to ride a bike, setting up their “tiny school” at home, and then he took the dogs on a 30 minute walk! So I rewarded my Son-in-Law’s enthusiasm with a big plate of chicken parmigiana that night. As we were leaving, the Bride began to take the Grands blood for a study at the university.

We have at-home kits to take blood, but not to test for this virus?

As we drove home from our socially distanced dinner on their front porch, we passed a long Catholic parade on the streets of Germantown. An official Bishop-type led dozens of priests and altar boys carrying a statue of the Virgin Mary adorned with flowers, there were at least a hundred people following the procession – the Assumption of Mary. Many of the women wore a lacey head covering, but virtually nobody wore a mask. Everyone was singing!

As I opened the car window and looked on adoringly, thinking about all those years at a Catholic camp singing with nuns in the woods on our way to a grotto, Bob yelled, “Wear a damn mask!” breaking the spell.

And that was the night, or actually early the next morning, we heard the intruder on our porch. Bob immediately went downstairs and I immediately thought to myself, “My phone is plugged in downstairs, what if I need to call 911…”

Then I heard Bob’s voice, he was talking to somebody. Prompting Ms Bean to leave her cozy bed, she led the way downstairs; so much for our little guard dog, she never uttered a peep, not a growl or a bark! Bob had already locked the door and sent a young man, who was surely a drunk tourist, on his way.

“What did you say?” I asked him.

“I asked him what he thought he was doing here,” Bob said. Sometimes the NJ vibe just cannot be contained. I was stunned. What if he had a gun? What if What if What if…..

Once before, in the Blue Ridge, a large van pulled up to our house at around midnight. Bob got up and looked out the window to see an elderly man standing there, putting on a jacket. We opened the front door and the man said, “We’re here for Mr Young.” Now Mr Young was actually an older gentleman farmer and former UVA professor who lived down our country road a piece, and he had died in his sleep. The van was from the Cremation Society of Virginia.

Would it be wrong to say how relieved we were – that the van wasn’t coming for us? We were living on 14 acres in the middle of a forest, still Bob wasn’t scared. And he had no fear in the wee hours before daybreak on Saturday, in fact, he went back to sleep! While I stayed up replaying all the different scenarios in my head. Maybe we should move out of the city? Should we start looking for a beach house, again?

When in doubt, cook! Yesterday I sent Bob to Whole Foods for tahini because the Insta people voted on Baba Ganoush as an appetizer. Although zucchini season was done, Bob’s elegant Japanese eggplants were just getting started. I haven’t made this yummy hummus-like spread since the 70s and it was a major hit at our party for two.

How many lives do we humans get? I survived a car accident in 1949, the Groom survived Covid in 2020. I wonder if our democracy will survive this political pandemic season.

IMG_8108

 

Read Full Post »

The Vernacular of Fear

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Public Policy, science, tagged , , , , , , , on April 21, 2020| 2 Comments »

Anyone else having pandemic dreams? We’ve reversed our dream life lately; Bob has been having Covid nightmares and I can’t seem to recall my dreams.

Normally, I have a vivid and colorful dream or two every night, while Bob wakes up empty handed in the morning. He’ll listen stoically over coffee while I regale him with my nightly scenario, only to tell me he’s got nothing. I insist he must have been dreaming, he just can’t remember.

My dreams are the usual anxiety type – “I’m about to take a test and realize I never went to the class,” or “I’m about to get on a plane and the pilot is someone I know who doesn’t know how to fly.” They are actually pretty straight forward, and sometimes my dreams are a reminder to do something I’ve been putting off, like make an appointment with a dentist.

Good luck with that one now, although I could drive to Georgia to get a tattoo!

This morning, for the first time in weeks, almost 6 weeks in fact, I remembered my dream. I was in charge of a theatrical production and I’d promised a script to someone… I was running around but I couldn’t find it. (This is me. Every. Damn. Day with my phone) so I had to go outside… to find the script or the person. And the outside was like the outside of my original high school in NJ, only the sidewalk was crowded with people. I had to yell at everyone to “Make Way!” It was like the parting of the sea, get out of my way, “Back Up!”

Obviously a quarantine dream. Bob, on the other hand, has been dreaming like crazy! He gets into a situation and realizes he’s too close to someone. Or he’s all of sudden surrounded by people and has to figure the safest, best way out.

In general, fear is the dominant emotion manifested by coronavirus dreams. When fear or anxiety becomes too intense during our waking lives, deep, REM sleep fails and we may experience repetitive nightmares. Psychologists say that sharing your dreams with others may help .

“During our dream states, stress sends the brain on a trip. The neurobiological signals and reactions that produce dreams are similar to those triggered by psychedelic drugs, according to McNamara. Psychedelics activate nerve receptors called serotonin 5-HT2A, which then turn off a part of the brain called the dorsal prefrontal cortex. The result is known as “emotional disinhibition,” a state in which emotions flood the consciousness, especially during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep, when we typically dream.”  https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/coronavirus-pandemic-is-giving-people-vivid-unusual-dreams-here-is-why/

During the 60s, I didn’t really participate in the psychedelic drug scene, remember I went to Catholic school. The whole idea of walking around inside a hallucination never appealed to me, I’d rather be asleep on such a phantasmagorical journey. But this global pandemic is novel, it’s not confined by country or ideology. We are all experiencing a kind of PTSD, well most of us who aren’t driving around with Confederate flags on our pick-ups eager to open up commerce cause, ya know.

They’d rather sacrifice lives and die than have their liberty trampled! Who doesn’t need a good haircut about now?

I’m sick and tired of the vernacular of fear. Of a toddler/president who thinks everybody loves him. Of a government that can’t organize a simple supply chain for SWABS! I’m sleep and dream deprived but I’m not willing to give up now, not when my daughter has spent the last 3 days working in an ER.

D0CD0B52-BA87-456E-B49B-323113D84C45

 

Read Full Post »