California Dreamin'

I miss it already. The weather. The people. Their way of being in the world. 

It was a rocky start. T is always late. This is one of those traits that is really cute when you are dating and really annoying when you are married. I used to tease her about it. Now, I yell at her about it. But...it was a Saturday morning and we had to be on our flight at 9:52. It was 8:50. And a half hour drive to the airport. Plus, I have yet to find an airport where I don't set off every alarm in the place. 

T was running around in her underpants doing last minute packing. I was sitting at the kitchen table, taking turns sighing and yelling at her. 

 She was finally ready. We went out to the car, put our suitcases in and.....

it refused to start. 

Our nearly new car. 

We have another car. My car. It is a 2008 Mazda. It is um....let's say quirky. It refuses to start if it sits for more than 48 hours. You jump the battery and it starts up fine. It has had 4 batteries in 4 years. We have taken it in to be checked. No mechanic can find a thing wrong with it. EXCEPT the mystery of the jumping emojis. Those little pictures that appear on your dashboard when something is amiss. When you have low tire pressure, the engine light, the seatbelt reminder light, etc. These all come on and off randomly. When this first started happening a few years ago, it bothered me and we had everything looked at. Again. NOTHING WAS WRONG. So, I have learned to ignore them. 

But, this posed a problem for us. If we took MY car to the airport, it would not start when we returned ten days later. We debated getting an uber. No time. We took my car. 

Of COURSE I set off the airport alarms. I was wanded right side, left side and every which way. We made our flight by seconds. 

T finds this exciting. I asked her if she wanted me to die from cancer AND ulcers. 

To say that we had fun in California is like saying that To Kill A Mockingbird is a pretty good book. We had a wonderful time. 

The only down side was my energy level. It was low. So low that I felt frightened a few times. But, I decided that if I was going to die....what better place than California, gazing out at the beach waves? 

California did its job. It gave me peace. Her lovely, liberal, funny, open minded people gave me peace. The weather was insanely gorgeous. So many diversities of people. And everyone got along famously. The Muslim concierge who helped us find little out of the way cafes to eat at, cafes that would be gentle on my stomach. The woman who served us breakfast every morning and was so generous with the cream for my coffee and gave us bananas and blood oranges to take on our drives. The couple at the lighthouse who sat with me while T went exploring and told me about their life in Honduras before they came to California 20 years ago.

But, then we had to come home. I cried when we left our little home on the sea. For awhile, my heart had felt cushioned in a soft downy nest.  We came home to a car in the airport parking lot with a dead battery and one at at home that needed repair. There was a snafu with my health insurance and my chemo drugs came a day late and only after I burst into tears with a rep from Blue Cross and Blue Shield and pulled the cancer card.

So now, I am on day three of chemo. The big bad chemo that no one in my support group did well on. I am holding my own. Within two hours of taking it, my stomach rebelled. It was NOT happy with this new addition to my diet. By the second day, the leg cramps appeared. And the crushing fatigue. But, so far....I have been spared the high blood sugars, the acne, the diarrhea, the skin itching that nearly everyone seems to get, and the mouth sores. I am diligently using my mouthwash, hoping to circumvent those. 

It is supposed to be 101 degrees today here on the prairie, with a 78% humidity. Tropical weather, they call it. As I do every Summer, I wonder what prompted my ancestors to pick this place to settle down in. If they had just pushed harder, I would be a Californian. Why, I wonder, would ANYONE chose to settle in a place where the Summers are so brutally hot and the Winters so terribly cold? I shrug. I suppose we could move. T would certainly enjoy that. 

But, I am too tired to even think of moving anywhere farther than the sofa to the bedroom. 

I lay in bed at night and dream of the sound of the ocean. I heard it every night for ten days as I fell asleep. That soft crashing lilt of water hitting sand and then pulling back into itself. I ache for it. 

I was off social media for ten days. I came back to a world that seemed even worse than when I left. Trump saying such hateful words to innocent women, trying desperately to divert our attention from his involvement with a pedophile friend. Last night, we sat and listened to his rally speech and I was astounded at the boldfaced lies he screeched. I looked behind him to his mad base. They began chanting, "Send her back. Send her back. Send her back." My stomach jolted.  This is SO not my America. 

I want to be like Anne Frank. I want to believe that people are basically good at heart. But, something in me feels this evil around me that is growing bigger and bigger. And I shudder with the reality of living through these times. It is VITAL that I stay on the right side of history. I think of those little black children trying to go to school with white children and those hideous faces of the white women screaming at them to "GO HOME, NIGGER." This is just too close. And I shudder twice because people whom I love are part of the hate mongering now. I can't bear to think of it. 

I take my mind to my cousin, Meg. We saw her in California. Sitting with her kind spirit, her rowdy laugh. How joyous she is. How good hearted. I think of my sister, Carol. Trying so hard to love unconditionally. Sending me near daily contact. Letting me know that, like ET, she is right here. I think of my niece, Lisa. Her sultry laugh as she tells me some story going on in her life, keeping her hand firmly in mine all the while, not letting me go under. 

There IS goodness in the world. There is Lucy. Conrad. Sarah. Our neighbor, Tom. 

There is T. Always and forever mine. 

I close my eyes and there is the ocean. I can see it....gray in the morning light. I take a sip of coffee, rich with cream. The waves crash against the sand. The smell of it brings healing to my bones.