Don’t Throw Yourself Out (Blog #1037)

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What a day. What a productive day.

I’ll explain.

A few days ago my parents’ garage door broke. And whereas it took me a while to figure out what the problem was because the door itself was fine and the motor was working, it ended up being a shattered plastic gear. (The motor turns the gear, and the gear turns another gear that moves the chain). Anyway, this afternoon I took the motor down from the ceiling and fished out all the broken pieces, six in all. Then, in hopes that I could buy a replacement gear, replace it, remount the motor, and call it a day, I called two local garage door companies. Well, nothing’s ever easy. Both companies said, “Unfortunately, that motor’s older than God, and no replacement parts are available.” And get this shit! The guy at the second place said, “The manufacturer doesn’t want you to fix your old motor; they want you to buy a new one.”

“How much will that cost?” I said.

“$375 including parts, labor and installation, and tax,” he said.

Turning my feet toward the front door, I said, “I’m gonna have to pray about that.”

Determined to find another solution, when I got home I went to work gluing the gear back together and thinking of ways I could reinforce the spokes with nuts and bolts. Then I decided to take another look on eBay, even though I’d searched earlier and couldn’t find a gear designed anything like mine. And whereas I still couldn’t find an exact match, I found an acceptable one, the difference being that my old gear turns a smaller, separate gear, and the one I ordered turns a smaller, built-in or attached gear. Anyway, considering it only cost $20 and can be returned if it doesn’t fit, it’s worth a shot.

Fingers crossed.

In order to detach the garage door motor from the ceiling, I first had to go to the hardware store. I needed a socket/socket wrench, which I had, but I wasn’t strong enough to turn it (the screws were in studs). So I went to Lowe’s to get an adapter that would allow me to connect the socket to my power drill. This did the trick. All this to say that the adapter caused me to get very excited about all the different-sized sockets lying around in my Dad’s and (dead) Granmpa’s respective toolboxes. I kept thinking, Now I can use those! So this evening I organized both toolboxes, including all the sockets and socket wrenches. Then, because one thing leads to another, I cleaned out and organized the drawers in our garage, the ones that we’ve been throwing all our random screws, nuts, nails, and washers into for the last thirty years.

Of course, this has made it a pain in the ass to find anything.

But not now. Now it’s all organized. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about this. Not only did I throw away a bunch of crap we’ll never use, but I also found a bunch of crap I never knew we had. For example, in my Grandpa’s toolbox were all kinds of files, wedges, hex wrenches, and plumbing tools. Stuff that will definitely come in handy!

Grandpa used to say, “You take care of your tools, and your tools will take care of you.” Along these lines, I’ve been thinking about how we’re so quick to throw things away, but when we simply take care of our stuff, it continues to serve us. Sure, there are times when a garage door motor goes kaput and it’s time to start over. But how often do we start over when we really don’t need to, just because a salesman tells us we should? “I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” they say. More and more I’m learning it’s worth checking into other options. It’s worth being persistent and creative and searching for answers. It’s worth taking care of your stuff.

Your body is capable of a lot.

Likewise, it’s worth taking care of your health. For the last six years and especially the last three, I’ve been focusing on just this. And whereas I’ve hit a lot of rough patches along the way, I feel like I’m really starting to make progress. Despite what well-meaning doctors (like me and you, they’re doing the best they can) have told me about certain diagnoses being irreversible (“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” they say), I’m convinced my body is capable of healing most anything. Indeed, after decades of dealing with mental, emotional, and physical problems, I’ve beginning to see many of them disappear. So it will forever be my encouragement to anyone who’s struggling on the inside or outside to hang in there and don’t take no for answer. Get a second opinion. Garage door salesmen don’t have all the answers, and neither do doctors. I’m not saying you’re never going to die (you’re GOING to die), but your body is capable of a lot.

Don’t throw yourself out just yet.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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It’s enough just to be here.

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All Bad Moods Pass Away (If We Let Them) (Blog #1030)

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Today was a repair day. What I mean is that I spent the afternoon fixing things around the house, broken this-and-thats that have been crying out for my attention for quite some time (help us, help us!), but–you know–you’re not always in the mood to fix a leaky toilet. So you let it drip, drip, drip into the bowl. All day and all night, the water runs. Slowly, but it runs. Your utility bill goes up. A little, but it goes up.

One thing leads to another.

Along these lines, I didn’t MEAN to fix two lamps, a sink, and my parents’ leaky toilet today. I just got on a roll. I started with one lamp and kept thinking, Well, while I’m at it. One trip to Lowe’s and two trips to Walmart later, it was all done. No more lamps with faulty sockets. No more leaky toilet or kitchen sink.

Now we can see, pee, and clean debris (from our plates).

After I finished fixing one of the lamps today, my mom expressed her gratitude by telling me a story, about our friend Randy who used to travel once a year from Baltimore to visit his parents in Arkansas (he doesn’t anymore because both he and his parents are dead). “Randy said each year he’d find more and more things in his parents’ home in disrepair,” Mom said. “As you get older, you just can’t keep up with everything that breaks. Take that lamp you just fixed, for example. If it weren’t for you, we never would have used it again.” And whereas I appreciate my mom’s appreciation and am happy to put things back together, what I’ve been thinking about this evening is the fact that everything, by design, falls apart. Even if you take care of your stuff and have a live-in handyman, sooner or later all material objects (and people) go the way of the dinosaurs.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t take care of your shit or patch the holes in your jackets. You should. I’m just saying, you’re fighting a losing battle.

One thing that occurred to me tonight is that just like our physical things eventually dissolve or pass away, so do our mental stories and emotional states. Who hasn’t had the experience of being totally pissed off one day and waking up the next day (or week) completely fine? Looking back, you think, What was I so upset about? Well, where did you bad mood go? Down the toilet, that’s where.

All bad moods pass away.

Unless–and perk up here because this is my major point–we keep “fixing” them. What I mean is that if you’ve been carrying a resentment or holding a grudge for one, two, or thirty years, it’s only because you’ve been “repairing” it, nursing it back to life every time it starts to die. Once I had a dear woman tell me that for decades she’d be laying one particular concern at the feet of the cross. I didn’t say it at the time, but I thought, Why do you keep picking it back up?! Of course, I do this too, not only with my judgments about other people (and they did this, and this, and this), but also with my judgments about myself and what’s possible in my life. I think, I’ll always be this (too sick too poor) because I always have been. And yet that’s just a story I’ve told myself over and over again, a fairy tale that would gladly slip out of my hands if I’d let it, a fable that would naturally fall apart if I’d only stop putting it back together.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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It’s not where you are, it’s whom you are there with.

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On Upcycling Your Past (Blog #988)

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Last weekend I got the idea to start a magnet board project, and yesterday I got the idea to start a picture frame project. And whereas a lot of my inspirations never come to fruition (this is the nature of the beast), today I started working on both of these ideas. Although I guess I technically started earlier in the week when I went to Lowe’s to buy supplies–spray paint, mounting hooks, etc.–for the magnet board. Or maybe I started before that when I had the notion to create. Hell, this probably all goes back to that fateful morning in 1979 when my parents skipped church to conceive me. Who knows when anything starts or stops?

But I digress.

For the magnet board I first took the pieces of wood framing I already had and cut them to the proper size. Having gone back and forth about whether to frame the board on the front (where it would look pretty and hold down the decorative paper on the board) or on the back (where it would allow more space for magnets and provide an easy way to hang the whole thing on the wall), I finally decided on the front. This is the deal with decisions. You worry and worry and then–poof!–you make a decision. Like an adult. Anyway, then I put one coat of spray paint on the boards and ironed the decorative paper as flat as possible while they dried. Then I put on a second coat of spray paint and turned my attention to the picture frame project I talked so much about yesterday.

As my plan was to hunt down a used book with an appealing cover for the mounting board/backdrop for my picture frame, I changed out of my paint clothes, switched shoes, and got ready to go. But just as I was leaving the house I decided to rifle through a box of religious books my mom had set aside for our upcoming spring garage sale. Well, I hit pay dirt. (Apparently Christians know how to make pretty books.) I found beautiful covers in blue, purple, black, and gold. And whereas I decided on blue for this current project, my mind went wild with possibilities for other projects. I even started showing my parents–like, Look at this, look at this. Well, when I showed my dad a golden cover with golden etching next to my golden frame and golden brooch (the object I’ve been thinking about displaying inside the frame), he said, “That’s TOO MUCH gold.”

“Not if I painted the frame purple,” I said.

He just looked at my mom and shook his head. “There’s something wrong with that kid.”

“You’re witnessing creativity in action,” I said.

As I sit here now, neither my magnet board nor picture frame project is complete. For the magnet board, the paint is still drying. Some things just take time. (No matter how much I wish things were complete, I can’t change the laws of spray paint.) And whereas for the picture frame project I got the book cover cut and mounted and a hanger attached to the back, I still haven’t decided WHAT to put in the frame. I love the idea of having my golden leaf brooch on display, but I also like the idea of wearing it and therefore don’t want to hot glue it down. Alas, I don’t know WHAT I’m going to do. The upside to being undecided? Anything could happen. The possibilities are endless.

With respect to everyday living, the lesson here is that we can focus on (put inside the frame of our attention) anything we want. When we wake up each day we can say, “Am I going to whine, bitch, and complain about the world I see? Or am I going to be grateful that I’ve been given one more day to live here and–here’s an idea–do something about it?”

While cutting the blue book cover down to size, the part of me that loves books and believes they’re meant to be read died a little. Tossing the rest of the (religious!) book in the trash, I felt like a sinner. Still, I remember what it felt like to be under the thumb of religion, and it wasn’t good. So it also felt refreshing to take something heavy and turn it into something light, to upcycle a piece of my past. With this is mind, I wrote the name of the book and its author on the back (er, inside) of the book cover to remind myself that as one thing–a book, an idea, a way of being–dies, it makes room for something else to be born.

Nothing is ever wasted.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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The more honest you are about what's actually happening inside of you, the happier you are.

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Together (Blog #917)

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Whenever I’m sick with a sinus infection, like I have been this week, I judge how sick I am by the color of the junk I cough up when I first get out of bed. It’s gross I know. (Don’t worry, I won’t get too descriptive.) But take yesterday for example, I hacked up this stuff that was dark and bloody. I thought, Oh yeah, I’m sick. But this morning I hacked up this stuff that was like, light yellow. So I thought, Okay, all right. Go team. This is progress. We’re on the mend.

As has been the case for the last year and a half, I credit my sinus improvements to probiotics. Not the kind you swallow, but the kind you either swish around in your mouth or sniff up your nose. I get it, it’s weird. But the idea is that sinus infections are caused by “bad” bacteria (I put bad in quotes because I’m sure the bacteria’s mothers don’t think of them as bad), and the probiotics contain “good” bacteria that crawl around in your sinuses, find those critters that are causing your nasty infection (I imagine they have to use teeny-tiny flashlights), and eat them for breakfast (with little forks). It’s sad to think about, I know. All those grieving bacteria mothers. But hey–circle of life and all that.

Assuming the probiotics I bought and started yesterday are the reason for my less colorful mucus, I’ve continued using them today. And whereas my health hasn’t miraculously turned around, I have felt better, more energetic. I’ve been coughing less. This morning I took it easy (I watched a documentary about Pixar, the computer-animated film company, on Netflix), but this afternoon I rallied and did some odd job work for a friend of mine–hauling trash to the dump(ster) and taking donation items to Savers. This evening I got out to teach a dance lesson, but when they canceled at the last minute I ran some personal errands instead. Returned non-used items to Lowe’s and Walmart, that sort of thing.

At one point in time I really flipped shit whenever a dance lesson canceled. Not because I didn’t understand that things come up, but because I get paid by the hour. In a very real sense, I count on that money. Still, these last several years have taught me that things always work out and something else always comes along. So rather than launching into my worry-wart routine this evening when my lesson canceled, I shrugged my shoulders and thought, Whatever. What-the-hell-ever. Now I can run those errands. And whereas running my errands wasn’t as lucrative as teaching a lesson would have been, it was perhaps just as fun.

I’ll explain.

Immediately upon leaving my teaching space, I saw three deer. No kidding. They’d just crossed the street and actually turned around to look at me. Stopping my car, I pulled out my camera. At this point the deer ran off. But then I looked out my other window and saw another deer, and this one let me take its picture. (How polite.) Talk about a magical moment. For this brief instant I wan’t thinking about sinus infections, lost wages, or anything stressful. I was just right there, right then. We were there together.

After my moment with the deer, I went to Lowe’s. There I told the ladies at the customer service desk that I’d like to return an item (a package of nuts and bolts). Well, one of the ladies said, “Oh, I’m sorry, it’s No-Returns Thursday.”

“Oh, no,” I laughed. “Not No-Returns Thursday!”

Then the other lady said, “Don’t worry. We’ll make an exception for you because you have great hair.”

Phew, I thought, my great hair saves the day again.

(For the record, my hair has never saved the day before today.)

I can’t tell you how much this interaction thrilled me. Earlier today I stopped by the bank to reorder checks (which I also did last week, but the checks came back with a spelling error on them–the orderer typed NPRTH instead of NORTH), and whereas the teller was pleasant and helpful, she wasn’t playful. Maybe that wouldn’t be appropriate at a bank, but my point is that we often take ourselves and what we’re doing so seriously that we miss the living, breathing people standing in front of us. We forget that we can make of any moment what we want to. We forget that regardless of our life circumstances we can have fun.

We can be right here, right now together.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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You can’t pick and choose what you receive from life, and you can’t always accurately label something as bad.

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On What You Give to Yourself (Blog #600)

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I spent this afternoon working on my dad’s honey-do list, which I guess makes me “honey” for the day. Anyway, he’s been asking me to fix the dishwasher for weeks. The front’s coming off, a spring is broken. “WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?” he said in desperation last night. So this afternoon I brought my lesbian toolbox inside and went to work. But before I could even take the damn dishwasher apart, I had to make two trips to Lowe’s in order to buy the appropriate screwdriver for the job. (The dishwasher is put together with those funny star-shaped screws, and it took two trips because they APPARENTLY make the screws in different sizes, and I guessed wrong the first time.)

It took a total of three hours, but I eventually got the dishwasher all fixed up–took the front off and put it back together with extra screws and some heavy-duty tape (since some of the plastic had broken) and fixed a spring that had popped off. Plus Dad and I vacuumed underneath. Yuck, what a mess. I’m guessing that hadn’t been done since sometime during the Reagan Administration.

Taking advantage of the fact that I was in a fix-it mood, Dad led me from the kitchen to his side of bathroom. “My sink is leaking,” he said, “but it’s just the cold water.” So off I went to Lowe’s again in order to buy a new rubber o-ring, which I assumed would be the answer to the problem based on where the leak was coming from. However, that didn’t work, so I’m going to go BACK TO LOWE’S either later tonight or tomorrow to TRY, TRY AGAIN.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

This evening I’ve been babysitting for some friends. You heard that right–me, babysitting!–taking care of two boys. One’s eleven and one’s nine. Honestly, it’s been a fantastic time. First we ate pizza and chicken wings, then we played Oregon Trail (a card came) and I died, then we watched The Sandlot. What a great movie. You’re killing me, Smalls. / You play ball like a girl! / Squints was pervin’ a dish. / For-Ev-Er. This was seriously a walk down memory lane. Not only did I used to play baseball like the boys in the movie (I was about as good as Smalls, which is not that good), but I also got a black eye from a ball like Smalls does in the film.

It really was the perfect way to spend an evening. Well, except for the fact that the boys fast-forwarded through the scene where Smalls and his friends knock the baseball with Babe Ruth’s autograph on it over the fence and into the territory of The Beast, the local dog they’re all afraid of. I don’t know–I guess it made them uncomfortable.

After the movie, the boys and I went through their nighttime routine. First, they brushed their teeth.

“Are you going to wash your faces?” I asked.

“Why would we do that?” they replied.

“Because you got pizza sauce all over them earlier,” I said.

They paused then said, “That’s what napkins are for!”

Next the boys said their prayers, which were absolutely adorable to listen to. They prayed for every single member of their family. “And God bless Mother and Father, and God bless older sister, and God bless me and brother, and God bless Grandma. Amen.” Then the older one turned to me and said, “Just to clarify, Grandma died five years ago.” Talk about priceless. After that, we sang three songs, the last of which was America the Beautiful. Not a single one of us was on key. Then the boys crawled into their respective beds. Then I let their little dog outside, and now the dog and I are piled up on the couch waiting for Mom and Dad to return.

This afternoon while I was repairing the dishwasher, my dad said, “Marcus, your Grandpa Dee would have been so proud of you.” (Grandpa Dee was my dad’s dad, and he was super handy.) Then he added, “I never did anything that he was proud of.” Wow. Even if this wasn’t a literal statement, it certainly was a heart-wrenching one. My grandpa was a good man, but I remember his coming in behind my dad to re-do things my dad had done, and that sucks for any child, that feeling of I’m not good enough.

I know what that feeling is like. My dad’s come in behind to re-do my work plenty of times over the years. However, now that we’re both older, that nonsense has stopped. For one thing, Dad can’t do as much for himself, so he kind of has to accept whatever help he can get. Plus, I can speak up for myself. This afternoon while Dad was peaking over my shoulder, I said, “Shoo. Get out of the kitchen.”

What you give to yourself, you can’t help but give to others.

I know it’s not always comfortable to talk about, the way our grandparents and parents weren’t perfect, the way all of us–myself included–aren’t perfect. We all have parts of our lives we’d like to fast-forward through, especially those times we’ve prioritized The Project over The Person. But having just spent an evening with two precious children, I think it’s important to talk about this, the fact that all of us are worthy of love and approval and few of us ever stop wanting these things from our parents. I don’t mean this as an indictment of my ancestors, since I believe everyone is doing the best they can with what they’ve been given. Plus, I know from personal experience that if you’re hard on others, that means you’re even harder on yourself. So all the more reason to work on yourself and give love and approval to yourself, since what you give to yourself, you can’t help but give to others.

[Tonight’s blog is number 600 (in a row). Much love and appreciation to anyone who’s read anywhere from one to all of them. This continues to be a truly enlightening, powerful, and healing journey, and I’m most grateful for those of you who allow me to travel it in such a public way. Here’s to you.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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More often than not, the truth is a monster. It gets in your face and makes you get honest. Sometimes the truth separates you from people you care about, if for no other reason than to bring you closer to yourself.

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