The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures and instructions for dancing
But I
I love it when you read to me
And you
You can read me anything
The book of love has music in it
In fact that's where music comes from
Some of it is just transcendental
Some of it is just really dumb
But I
I love it when you sing to me
And you
You can sing me anything
The book of love is long and boring
And written very long ago
It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes
And things we're all too young to know
But I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings
And I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings
And I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings
You ought to give me wedding rings

I cried the first time I heard this song. It's a song originally done by the The Magnetic Fields but I confess I have not ever heard them singing it. Instead I have only heard Peter Gabriel singing it. It suits my mood today. It's been a very stressful period of time and it's not easy to keep smiling all the time and put a pretty face on things. I am growing exhausted of trying. This song for me is beautiful and bittersweet. It almost always makes me cry.

My great-grandmother, Margaret Kinsey, is currently lying in a hospital bed dying. It can of course be argued that each of us is dying, our cells deteriorating a little more day by day. That seems to be the natural order of life after all. Margaret is in the final stages of heart disease. Her heart is going, giving in to the inevitable. It is shutting itself down. Currently she is on a machine but now...the doctors are backing her off of the medication. When they have her fully off of the medicine they will look to Margaret's oldest child, my Gran... Shirley Smith... and await her order to pull the plug, turn off the machine that is sustaining her life.

The truth is... I don't know what to feel about this. My emotions are a jumbled mess at present. I barely knew Margaret. I met her twice in my life. I have a single picture of myself with her, a pretty photo of Margaret, Shirley, my Mom, and I in front of Old West Side Elementary School because at one point in each of our lives all four of us attended that school. It is nice to have the photo, because it is a memory. She called me twice on my birthday to sing to me, the last time was four years ago. She didn't remember it was my birthday until My Gran called me and she heard her wishing me a happy birthday. The gesture though was truly very sweet. She's offered money to me before, an offer I graciously declined. I didn't want, nor need it and that aside... it felt at the time a bit like she was trying to buy my affection.

My thoughts of the woman, my memories of her are not at all bad, yet nor are they good. They simply are a few motions in time, a few acts here and there. Nothing more. I cannot remember receiving a hug from her. I cannot remember her telling me that she loved me. For that latter I am excedingly grateful. I would not want her to lie.

I am worried about my Gran. She is there by herself awaiting that final moment. Her own relationship with Margaret is funny to me due to it's similarities to her own with her daughter (my Mom, Amber). You see... Margaret drives Shirley crazy. In turn Shirley drives my mother crazy. It's almost a family tradition. Mother's and daughter's not getting along. Fortunately Amber and I broke the chain. We do get along, very well in fact. Sure, she drives me demented at times but no more than I do her. I'd wager with my Griffith Pride I drive her a bit more batty to be honest.

I wish I was there with Gran. Heaven knows why! I would be of little use. Sitting, awaiting that inevitable moment when she loses her mother. When we love someone we want to be there for them in times of great joy and overwhelming sadness. Yet Shirley and I are a bit alike. We are strong and practical people who know our own limitations. She would want to take care of me if I were there and so she would not grieve as she'll need to do. She is the executor of the whole estate and as much as it pains me to say this, her brother in law and his children are greedy little devils. They'll no doubt try to contest the Will.

I wish I could mourn Margaret.

I love her in my way, but it is as a fond acquaintance. Someone that I have few memories of but they are at least fond memories. She was good to me when she managed to think of me at all. Aside from that... she is a human being and I have a great respect for human life.

I also worry for my mother. She is losing her grandmother and I do know exactly what kind of pain that can cause. Especially if you were close. Margaret and my mother were close when my mother was little and during her teenage years. They slowly grew apart though as my mother became a woman with children of her own to tend to. I don't know why my mother didn't keep up contact with her side of the family. I can guess at parts of it though. I won't call them evil, never that, but they are not generous or kind hearted people. There is a great level of politics involved with her family. My father's family is kinder by comparison at least. I often maintain that they are not nice people but make up for it with humor. That's a joke though.. the truth is they are all nice people and each a unique and beautiful personality. They love hard, live hard, and as I have noticed die hard.

I feel bad that I don't feel worse. I keep feeling like I should truly hurt over this but am held back from it somehow. My lack of closeness with her creates a very effective shield. Had this been my Gran in the hospital in California, laying in that bed tied to a machine... I'd be on a plane now to California instead of typing this. She doesn't want me there at the moment, she doesn't need me distracting her from this last time with her mother. I don't blame her for that. I just wish I was able to give her a big hug. I like hugs. That physical contact reminds people of just how much you love them. You are willing to let them in to your personal space and willing to take the plunge and invade their's for a few seconds.

Margaret is 90 years old. Her age is told to me as though it should make a difference, as though just saying she's lived that many years should make her passing somehow more acceptable. I don't honestly believe it does. Her age is a figure, a statistic in my head that doesn't really make the fact that she may be dead tomorrow morning any easier for those that know her. Perhaps if we focus on that number and hold it close for a while it'll hold some power, but it'll only hold the power that we give it. It's just a number, a calculation of years she's been alive. It's not a magic number that makes her passage from this world any less painful.

I wish I could have known her better, loved her better. I know she was a kind woman, worth loving better than I was able to give her. I pray that my Gran has the strength to do what she knows to be right in the aftermath and I pray that I am able to be of some comfort to her and to my mother during this sad time.

A week and a half ago the plumbers were called in to fix a problem here at the house. The toilets made a gurgle sound and drained out almost completely when someone took a shower or when the washing machine ran. It was worse though when the machine ran. Then the water and soap from the washer would flow into the bathtub while sewage rose from the drain in the laundry room. Needless to say this was distressing because no one likes the smell of sewage in their home. The plumber came over and fixed the problem. Or so we thought, we being my husband, myself, and yes the plumber too.

Today the plumber had to return and many jokes aside about how we are practically family with how often he's had to tend to our plumbing in the last four years, he got to work on checking the pipes. Soon enough he called in a specialist. He had wanted to do this previously but his superiors had refused this move. However the specialist was called and he found the problem. Not only did he find the blockage, he found that roots from the trees that housing had let run wild (when they were not suppose to) were trying to interfere with the pipes. The main problem though was that when the newer pipes had been lain years before I lived here someone had allowed one of the ancient pipes to remain. It had fallen away from the other pipes and into disrepair.

So now the fence between my house and the neighbors must be knocked down. Then the smaller trees shall be dug up and relocated to better ground where they can happily grow free. Then the new pipes will be lain. This shall be done either Monday or Tuesday. Happy Happy Day. I am a bit cranky after this long ordeal and just ready for it to all be over.

Of late things have been changing inside of me. Things seem to be shifting. I think it's been going on for a long time. The movements subtle, so much so that until recently I didn't know that things were moving and then there was a click. Things falling into place. I won't say that things are clear, because they aren't. They cannot be. Things are too complex in the spectrum of life for that to be true. But I felt better than I have felt in a long time. I was not even aware that I had not felt well at all.

Last night I needed someone to talk to, to try to define it. I always try to define what is going on within me. I do not try to define everything. That is not my nature. I love to simply be and enjoy. But when it comes to my own emotions, I need that definition. I need to understand myself. Without that, I drift and drift through the world, through life. I am not a drifter. Anyone who knows me would nod or smile now at that statement. I do not go with the flow. I charter my own course through life, through society, through the world. I am not made to be a being who can happily drift along with the flow of the tide, the flow of the wind. I am not a reed. I am more.

Last night I didn't define all that I need to and maybe that is alright. I don't think that it is going to be an easy thing to do. I feel something unfurling inside of me, like a flower in Spring and I want to nurture it. Want to watch it grow.

Last night I talked with my friend, JoAnn. Talked to her while I wandered my back yard in the cool chill of evening. It was glorious. The feel of the cold damp grass beneath my feet. The feel of the wind in my hair. Oh and the stars! Shining brightly overhead and just for a little while looking down at me as they had in another place, another time. So close that I could delight myself with the notion that I could reach up and grasp them. They were like little dreams hovering in the dark blanket of night.

It was beautiful. Glorious. I didn't want to go inside, but I could not wander the yard anymore. My legs no longer wished to support such effort. Instead I grabbed a comforter and sat on top of it, then I lay on it, looking up at the sky, listening to the steady and comforting lilt of my sister's voice. Bathed for a few moments in such solace. I eventually had to go inside. The weather became too chill and I knew that I should return inside lest I become ill. Oh but I wanted to stay.

So when early morning came and I let JoAnn go with words of love and gratitude, I took that comforter back outside and lay myself down beneath the night sky. I watched the stars. I thought about the emotions flooding through me, giving them definition until sleep came to me and kissed my eyelids closed. It ended too soon, that glorious moment beneath the stars, sleeping in the back yard on an old but still thick and comfy comforter that I had so treasured in another life and found that I still treasured today.

I don't know what time it was. How long I had slept. It could not have been long. The hour of man was upon us. The gray light of false Dawn came upon me and I sat up, eager and more energetic than I had a right to be. I needed to wait. To watch the tendrils of pink and orange light slip into the sky and then to see the sun rise over the mountains. It was luxurious to simply sit there on a white and blue comforter with a bottled water in my lap and watch the coming of the day. Then and only then did I gather up the comforter, folding it with honor and reverence and then I returned within doors. I fell into my perfectly made bed and slept for several hours.

It felt good to sleep. I probably should have done all I could to gain more of it, but I did not. I awoke around ten and have been doing things around the house. Now I must end this, and go mow the lawn. More to do. And I am grateful that today is bright and sunny as was yesterday so that the ground could dry enough for me to mow in the first place.

I am to talk to the Girl's tonight. I wonder if all shall make it? I wonder if I shall talk to them while laying on a comforter in the back yard looking up at the glory of the nighttime sky? I wonder if the changes within me will disappoint some, making them wish to be rid of my friendship? I cannot summon much strength to care about it now. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps the day after. I cannot say, cannot determine a deadline for such things.

My New Years Eve was spent with news of my dad's hospitalization, and without my husband for the better part of the day. My husband was assisting a friend in moving from his apartment. Our friend, who is getting married in a week, returned from visiting his parents over the Christmas Holiday to find that the apartment above his had flooded. The water ruined his computer and quite a few other expensive electronic devices. Such an awful way to return from the holiday. So William helped him move stuff yesterday and it took quite a few hours.

As for my father, this time it is Kidney Stones. His heart is not doing well and the pain he was in while trying to pass a stone has certainly put more strain on his heart. However, they do not feel comfortable going in a shooting up the stones. So they gave him a medication that will hopefully help to break them up. The good news is that his diabetes is doing fine.

I got a phone call from my sister in law, Kelly, wishing me Happy New Year. And I got plenty of text messages from friends. Most of them from Illinois and texting me during the hour of midnight Central time and eleven my time (Mountain Time). It was very sweet of them to wish me a happy new year.

It is now January 1st, the beginning of a new year, 2010 to be exact. I am very grateful that the old year is over. I shall not miss it much. It was a year of joy and a year of hardships as well and I shall not be the least bit sorry to put those hardships behind me. I think the thing that is wonderful about the first day of the new year is that it is full of promise. People can allow themselves to believe that this year will be far better than the one that just passed. I hope that is so for everyone. I hope that they go out and do what they can to make this new year happy and bright for themselves and for everyone else.