Tide, My Savior

September 3, 2010 By

A category 1 hurricane is expected tonight and it is the first of the season.  As it approaches, I work on memories.  1954.  Hurricane Carol.  I was 9 years old and watching its Category 3 fury whip the calm cove near the Cape Cod Canal into a frenzy.  I was enjoying it.  Excited, even.  Then, our neighbor’s boat, “Coquina” broke its mooring cable and came crashing into my father’s boat, “Hunky Dory”.

I no longer liked the hurricane.  It switched to abject fear in one silent collison of wooden beams (the wind was howling so loud you could hear nothing else).   I went upstairs to the linen closet, closed the door, and waited out the storm amidst the smell of clean towels and sheets.

Some prefer macaroni and cheese as their comfort food throughout their life.

I prefer the scent of  “Tide”.

©Pat Coakley 2010

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Filed Under: After the Storm, ANXIETY 2.0, Buzzards Bay, fear Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Big Baby

June 14, 2010 By

I’m in the midst of a mild arthritis spell.  The doctor told me that on a scale of 1-10, my arthritis limitations are minor you big baby they only rated a 2 on his lifestyle interference scale.  OK, he didn’t say “big baby”.

His scale doesn’t prevent me from looking at the wider world moving easily, however.

I remember my wheelchair bound mother asking me to straighten a picture hanging on the wall and how she watched me get up and cross the room and then return back to my chair with a look of longing and, yes, envy.

Big Baby your day is coming she would say.  Ok, she didn’t say “big baby”.

Here is the entire quote from “The Infinities” by John Banville that I borrowed a sentence from in yesterday’s post.  He is an Irish writer who rates 10 (on a scale of 1-10) of those deserving to have “Writer” on their passport.

OF THE THINGS we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works.  When darkness sifts from the air like fine soft soot and light spreads slowly out of the east then all but the most wretched of humankind rally.  It is a spectacle we immortals enjoy, this minor daily resurrection, often we we will gather at the ramparts of the clouds and gaze down upon them, our little ones, as they bestir themselves to welcome the new day.  When a silence falls upon us then, the sad silence of our envy.

John Banville, “The Infinities”

©Pat Coakley 2010

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Filed Under: Aging, ANXIETY 2.0, Arthritis, Authors, Blessings and Curses, Caregiving Tagged With: , , , ,

Beyond Knowing

June 4, 2010 By

President Obama has returned to the Gulf today.  His famously “calm” nature is reported to be roiling beneath the surface.  If BP has readied 55 million dollars worth of TV advertising to try and salvage their corporate name before this well is capped, I believe even Ghandi himself might consider violence.

Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist in charge of “The Manhattan Project” during World War II  was quoted after the war and the use of his project’s mission: the creation of the atomic bomb, that he and the scientists who had worked with him on the project “in some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish–the physicists have known sin, and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.” (PBS-American Experience)

Far be it from me to establish “sin” boundaries, but if pressed for a contemporary study guide?

Watch the 24/7 live web cam of the ocean floor in the Gulf spewing its own mushroom cloud of oil.

As my blogger friend and artist, Don Diddams said in a comment on another of my posts about this subject: “It is as if the very center of the earth is bleeding.”

©Pat Coakley 2010

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Filed Under: "What is it? Series", ANXIETY 2.0, Art of Decay, Catastrophes, Creativity, Current Events, The Unkowables Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Geezer Dome

January 24, 2010 By

Today, the NFL championship games take place.  I have no dog in this hunt as the New England Patriots are currently “rebuilding” their former championship status.

Me?  I’m trying to do my own rebuilding.

Welcome to the surface of bubble wrap.  Some folks like to pop their bubbles–I like to photograph them.

A pattern is emerging here, I’ve noticed.  This past month, the first month of the new year, the new decade, I’ve been photographing useful objects around the house that are often taken for granted or even tossed out when their usefulness is over.

Small hand tools.  Vegetables.  Now, bubble wrap.

What is going on here?

I’m thinking it’s my 65th birthday coming up in February.  Oh, and if you want to retain your limbs,  don’t be telling me it’s just a number.

This isn’t a ‘you are as old as you feel’ moment.  This is an honest-to-god society looks-at-you-as-a-geezer moment AND this turnstile leads only in one direction.  You can go on a cruise or climb K2 if you are able and want to, but infinity is no longer a biological defense against nature.  High seas? High altitudes? Nope.  I’m more interested in journeying to states that legally approve the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

If I wanted to forget this birthday,  I couldn’t.

My mailbox on a daily basis has another reminder.  Medicare.  Medigap insurers.  Social Security.  I know the US post office is in trouble financially but it’s not because of my age group.

As I have poured my creative efforts into revealing a hidden beauty in those things we often overlook in our lives, I have filled out forms, talked to 800 lines, received my Medicare A & B card, my Blue Cross Blue Shield Medex card, and countless lesser but unmistakable confirmations of geezer status.

I’m not kidding–if Obama wants to reorganize his political team,  I suggest taking some folks from the Social Security Administration.

This is yet another ongoing series. The Art of the Overlooked, and, of course, I’ve realized along the way that  it is my usefulness and value that  I am looking for as I scan vegetables, old hand tools, bubble wrap.

Well known to those of us who are female and over 50, a cultural invisibility comes with the territory.  Some women try to surgically make themselves visible again but to those who wait without the scapel, when we reach 65?  Miracle.   We are once again visible.

That’s the good and bad news.

Our individual visibility is now as a group herded into The Geezer Dome and while I’m going to try to get out of the stadium occasionally, most of the time, I’ll probably be trying to get into that red zone all those NFL analysts palaver about, but so far?

I’m not exaggerating one bit when I tell you that this artificial turf is bad on the knees.

a©Pat Coakley 2010

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Filed Under: Aging, ANXIETY 2.0, The Art of the Overlooked, The Geezer Dome Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dentistry of Anxiety: Ode to Mandibular

June 30, 2009 By

myteeths

Nice to meet you, I’m a clencher.

A hold on tight, nothin’-gettin’-by-this-enamel-armada type of clencher.

At night, I’m probably a bruxist, as in one who grinds their teeth at night while asleep.

How do I know?

I can’t eat a hot dog without my jaw cracking with a sound that scares birds from the tree outside my dining room.

The culprit?

O, Anxiety, I crown thee with blossoms today.  Queen of the Temporomandibular Joint, Queen of the May.

Instead of having Botox or collagen injections for my thinning lips and drooping eyelids, I’m having teeth molds done in order to have a “custom” appliance made for my mouth.

When the appliance came back from the lab it was the size of my thumb nail and fit over the bottom center teeth.  It was a perfect fit except it made my jaw pain worse.

I think I know something about Bernie Madoff’s victims that has yet to be revealed.  I watched two on The Charlie Rose show the other night and the evidence was clear.

Those with pre-existing anxiety disorders and definitely those who developed them in ’08 when the stock market and world appeared to be collapsing, have all developed jaw tics and terrors we’ve not yet fully understood.

The dentist may call it TMJ, but to a Madoff victim finding out that their life savings had gone up in Ponzi smoke?  This requires another diagnosis and treatment.

I know that even without losing my entire nest egg to the market of ’08 and whatever we are calling the market of ’09, the turmoil has taken a toll.  I am a changed girl.  There’s no appliance to cushion those changes.

My dentist, who is of retirement age, said in all his life practicing as a dentist, he’s never had to call the lab and say, “It’s not working” as he just did for me.

The lab was nice and didn’t charge him and he was nice and didn’t charge me.  So, the 500 dollars I would have had to spend for it, I am putting back under the mattress, photographing my teeth molds, and calling a musician.

Why a musician?

Now that the gloved one has passed on, the airwaves are begging for a new direction.

I think our fortunes, however humble, could be made once again if someone would write a John Cage type musical score of the new jaw sounds anxiety has created in the past year.

We could call it, “Ode to Mandibular”.

I feel my jaw relaxing just thinking about it.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Filed Under: 1, ANXIETY 2.0, Life, Personal, Photography, TMJ Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Help! I’ve Fallen And I Can’t Get Up

May 31, 2009 By

budlightsMy neighbor, in her early seventies, went out of our cul de sac in an ambulance the other day for the second time in a month.

She is caught in a spiral of medical problems that is showcasing the downside of living alone.  Since I live alone, I look at her and wonder, “Shall I be as resistant to the obvious when my time comes?”

Or, shall I be one of those who steps up to reality, and says, “Check me in, sister, to this no zone and “no” I don’t play bridge or bingo.”

None of us plan on being dependent whether we are alone or with our partners.  But, the statistics are there.  We end up dependent on others whether in our own home or in a “facility’ that always has the word “golden” or “sunrise” in it.

The fog horn is bleating in the distance as that ambulance circles the center island on the way out, lights flashing on my kitchen walls.

I have a choice.  Think about it some more or go take a photograph that shall go along with this post which I’m filing under “Fear, The Series” and “Anxiety 2.0, the Series”.

In 1987, Mrs. Fletcher first appeared in a TV ad for LifeLine, a call button senior citizens who lived alone could wear to summon emergency services.  Her cry for help “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” became a comedy classic and used as a metaphor for many situations.

I am laughing at Mrs. Fletcher no more.  Well, maybe just a little.

View Mrs. Feltcher HERE

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Filed Under: ANXIETY 2.0, change, elderly, FEAR THE SERIES, Life, Personal, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Unnatural World, (Anxiety 2.0 The Series)

May 18, 2009 By

anxietytrainFINAL

President Obama’s remarks at the recent Correspondents’s dinner in Washington made fun of himself, democrats and republicans.  One hilarious remark concerned Rep Boehner from Ohio and his perpetual tan.  He referred to him as a man of color except it was not a color seen in the natural world.  Rep. Boehner was gracious about the remark and admitted he did like to be outside.

If the melting ice caps have already transformed the “outside” in Ohio to the Caribbean then I totally buy his  explanation.

But, the natural world remark made me think of anxiety and how it distorts reality as well.  All striations of experience are affected and the colors you do see are glimpses, fleeting and coded threats of permanence.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Filed Under: alternative energy, ANXIETY 2.0, TRAINS, Trucks and Trains Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Picnic Gone Very Wrong (Anxiety 2.0 Series)

March 31, 2009 By

picnicgonewrong

It was her idea.  She wanted to go on a picnic with Pappy (moi) and her six year old sister after we went to the “Iberry”.  She is three and this was her first picnic.  And, maybe her last.

I call it the picnic that went wrong.

She ran around so much her heel skin rubbing against her Ugg boots got irritated and a patch of tender skin tore off.  She screamed, “I want my Mommie!”  Ok. Ok.  We’ll just take the boot off and walk back to the car with one barefoot.  Screams ensued and more eye and nose liquid than I thought possible in one small human being.

I offered to take off my shoe and sock, so the both of us could walk back to the car with one barefoot.

The six year old sister yells out, “Pappy, you’re not going to show that toe, are you?”

(I’ve got a bad toe, ok?   I ‘ve learned to keep it covered up around small children.)

“O, boy,”  I say.  “How about I put my sock on your sister’s foot while you look away toward the library and then I’ll put my foot back into my shoe, sockless, but covered up?”

Deal.  It even made the three year old laugh a bit putting on Pappy’s sock but the laughter didn’t last because she insisted on putting her foot back into the offending Ugg boot.

“I want my mommie!”

“Me, too, honeychile.  Me, too.”

We set off toward the car.  The three old limped like her leg had been amputated. The six year old ran far ahead so there was no chance she’d catch sight of my toe.

When we got home, their mother opened the door and the screams started.

My screams not theirs.

How do parents do it?

The next day I dropped something off at their house and the three year old said, “No more picnics, Pappy!”

Deal, sweet girl.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Filed Under: ANXIETY 2.0, CHILDREN, Deep Thoughts, Family, FEAR THE SERIES, Humor, Life, Personal, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Going Owl

March 23, 2009 By

owl4x1

Light is beginning to dawn on me (as well as this tree) that this tree silhouette that I’m so fond of is actually a silhouette of dead branches not just a bare tree in winter and early spring.

I’ve been coming here since late Fall and thought the leaves had just fallen off remarkably evenly.  Scientist, I’m not–this is clear.

It interests me this odd gap in observation that I have.  This blind spot, I’ll call it, amidst a rather 360 degree steadily revolving head turning this way and that throughout the day.

Odd.  Me, the professional observer, can totally miss the point.

The properties of this tree, its essential truth, I missed.  It’s shape and the possibilities of the sky painting the background was all I needed to know in order to photograph it.

I am suspicious now of this blind spot in my field of vision.  It is one of my core traits as I’ve come to find out from these past three seasons of discontent in America, the world, and my world.

There are times when this trait fits the chaos and allows for modification of expectations and the ability to grind on with equanimity, but at other times, it just makes me feel like, “Wow. I’m clueless.”

I’m going to act as if.  In fact, I’m going “owl”.

Easily spooked, I take to the air suddenly and head west.

O, wait.  American’s already done that.  In fact, I did that back in 1967 when I moved to San Francisco.

So, maybe I’ll just head west, circle slowly over Medway and Bellingham like I know what the hell I’m doing and then come back to my favorite dead tree when night falls.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Filed Under: ANXIETY 2.0, Deep Thoughts, Failure, Humor, Life, Personal, Photography Tagged With: , , , , ,

Moving From Abundance to Pandemic

March 21, 2009 By

northamerican2

Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan (Challenger explosion, most memorable, “slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God”) writes for the Wall Street Journal and a week ago wrote about a type of depression and anxiety she senses in the country that doesn’t have an appropriate pharmaceutical as a remedy.

People are buying more guns, she reports–going to church more and increasingly reporting to at least one mental health provider that they are depressed and anxious.

She talked to bankers, psychiatrists, writers, friends and hears fear.   Not the white knuckle variety of last Fall she observes but the drip drip drip of realizing that an era has ended and is not coming back.

After listening to a psychiatrist talk about how when we move into a new home we always realize the importance of our previous environment, Ms. Noonan called our present home, “PostPosterity” and our old home, “Abundance”.  The psychiatrist called it a “psychological pandemic of fear”.

Yikes.  I was feeling…well, fearful before I read that but now? I’ve got to rewrite my series on fear to “Fear, The Pandemic”? Wait a moment while I try to beat back the pandemic.  I’m going to go and reread the Challenger speech.

(cue Jeopardy music)

Ok. I’m back. So, before you go out and buy a gun, or go to church (god forbid) or steal my little blue pills, let me point out that Peggy might want to do two things.

One: reread her old speeches.

“The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.”

And, I’d just add this one little addition: it belongs to the brave and to those with a sense of humor. (I’ve only got the latter going for me)

Then, Ms. Noonan, I’d suggest one more thing: watch Obama on Leno.

The President is cleary not fainthearted AND he’s got a sense of humor.

Two for two.

RX for Pandemic: Watch tape of this show once a day with meals until further notice.

Or, if your readers don’t care for Leno (clearing throat sound) then how about suggesting that they might want to think about a photo of Mrs. Obama planting herbs and veggies on the White House lawn on their frig. She’s better looking than that one of Bernie Madoff with a target on his forehead and it makes us ol’ fear’d up girls and boys calm down.

Who knows, maybe these prescriptions could reduce overall faintheartedness,  Smith and Wesson’s sales, and save our arthritic knees from too much of that church kneelin’ and swayin’.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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Filed Under: ANXIETY, ANXIETY 2.0, Creativity, Events, fear, FEAR THE SERIES, FINANCES, Humor, Life, Personal, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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