We spent two days and one night at Great Wolf Lodge in Anaheim.  A wonderfully large big bear log cabin filled with thick furniture and roaring fires.

The parking garage, huge and all encompassing smelled like doughnuts, but not a sickeningly sweet manufactured smell.  Just a gentle, subtle smell of sugar and cinnamon.  Gone was the scent of oil, smoke, and gas.  Gone were the smells of the outside world.

20 luggage carts existed in the corner of that huge parking garage.  These carts thoughtfully placed on every level. They looked like a mirage.  I couldn’t believe it.  Surely these carts would cost money to rent!  They were perfect little carts, rows and rows of them.  I had to see for myself so I headed over.  Yes, they were free. Yes, please take one. Yes, please take it to your room and keep it for your stay.

Orange bands encircled our wrists once we registered for our rooms.  These benign little tracking devices opened rooms (or didn’t), and kept watch for you.  While you were here, you were here.  Here to spend time with your family, here to investigate safely through a huge home filled with candy shops, bakeries, arcades, restaurants, and huge pools and water slides.

I surrounded myself with the warm and humid air pumped out throughout the building.  I delighted in the icy coldness of the bathrooms, with the tiled floors, and the hot showers.  Then to be hit again with this warm humid air once I went back out into the huge play area again.

It was a place for beer drinking and fried foods.  A place of discarded moist towels on the floor and wet feet.  A place for moisture, for standing water, for chlorine, for sweet sticky drinks, for families gathered around little tables. Then there were other families that sat in an orderly line.  All snacks and bottled water from home carefully packed. Salty chips and Oreos,  decorative flip flop shoes, and lacy cover ups over bathing suits never wet.

This place was such a fascinating cornucopia of families. There were folks that arrived, disorganized and cheerful.  Happily kicking off their sandals and dumping towels and clothes all over chairs.

Then there were others that floated in, smelling of vanilla and flowers and clean.  Oversized bags of all colors and materials, filled with dry clothes, books, snacks, lotions, and bandaids.  Pouches of makeup included in cute pink zippered bags.  A separate pouch for pens and various writing instruments.  A journal filled with thoughts and observations.  Their area was tidy.  Flip flops tucked under chairs, low tables wiped off of all spilled drinks.  Fresh warm towels brought in and carefully laid out.  These people were not at all offended by the chaos, screams, and wet around them.  They  created their own sweet oasis in their chair with their books and their big bags and their studied observations.  This was me, all the way.

My kids left and came back, left and came back.  Off to  have adventures.  Sometimes I joined them, leaving my little writing oasis behind. We all would run off and grab inner tubes and mats.  Holding this equipment up mightily as we ventured up the stairs.  The cold water and speed was shocking but comforting.  I had no control of my body but was simply left to the elements.  I graciously let go in these speed filled, splashed filled moments.   Then I would return to my oasis to savor and relax. The kids would return, wide eyed and happy.  John and I would envelope them  in the warm dry towels, rub their tiny arms, widen our eyes and open our ears to hear all of the kids’  adventures. Then we would pull them into our arms, sit them on our laps, or say I love you as our babies would quickly dump their excited news and run off again to gather more.

And the big huge bear clock continued to mark the time instead this peacefully chaotic environment.  A place of vacation, of spending time slowly and leisurely.  A place of bathing suits and towels. A place of no pretenses.  A holy place.

Today I have things I need to do.  To be honest, I am resentful of it.  These past few mornings, every morning in fact, I have been outside.  My morning routine consists of my coffee, a breakfast of toast or my homemade waffles or cinnamon rolls.  I grab my self care toolkit.  My journal, a pen, my books on daily living and the one day at a time philosophy, and I head outside.

I think, I drink, I eat, I read, and I write.  John sometimes comes out and has coffee with me and we talk a bit.  Half the day can go by during these conversations.  Eventually we head back inside.  John runs to the store to get something for us to eat.  I head upstairs to further go through all our stuff.

Today, however, there are hard lined, set in stone, “Things to be done.”  Phone calls have to be made and emails sent.  Why am I dreading them?  Probably because each represents either an ending or a beginning.  The last dentist appointments here.  The closing of schooling here for my oldest. The opening up of new schooling in Oregon.

It is an emotional time for me filled with endings and beginnings.  Sometimes it feels so good to just reside in the happy middle.  At least I know that balance will be waiting for me when I finish all my “To Do’s” today.

Off to work!

This little face at the bottom of this page.  My precious son, was angry at me because I wasn’t ready to play a card game yet.  A card game that his Grandpa, my Dad,  had taught him.  It was called “War” and involved two players.  The cards divided.  Each person putting their card down one at a time, comparing it to the other person’s.  “War” began when the two cards were the same.  Then there was a challenge, to put 3 more cards down and a final card.  The person with the higher scoring card won.  Winner take all.

My Dad taught me this game when I was a child. Intended to ease the boredom of our long train trips up and down the western coast of the United States.  We took many trips from southern California up to North Bend, Washington, to visit his brother.  We always took the train.

I spent many hours on a train, watching scenery and lives past by me, playing “War.”  It was a game to occupy my mind.  One that didn’t involve thinking.

Now that man, my Dad, the man who taught me that game, is gone.  This picture was taken in 2016 a couple weeks after my Dad passed away.  The sorrow is evident on my son’s face as well.  He needed me to play that game with him, and right after I took this picture I played it with him.

Ironically the cards that we used belonged to my sister-in-law’s fiance.  What we didn’t know was that this fiance would pass away the next year, 2017.  Both the game and the borrowed cards, were offered to us by men that would both die within a year of one another.

Both of these men were beloved by those whom they belonged to. Both men were cremated.  Their ashes residing in different places.  Both of these men had such fragile hearts. Hearts that just were not designed for the long and perilous journey of life, and it was their hearts which ultimately felled them both.

But what both of their hearts did, and did well, was love.  Figuratively, in that sense, their hearts were strong and healthy and pure.

So the card game continues….

The sun is setting on the very first day of a new year. I have started this post a couple of times and stopped. As usual the running narrative in my head going faster than my fingers. That disconnect that often occurs when I write for an audience. Bear with me as I move through this.

I don’t know if I will be able to write here on this blog all the time. I don’t know because I truly am going to take this one day at a time. My life is becoming smaller as we make plans to move, as we sell furniture, BBQ’s, and stuff. As we watch people come into our house, always pleasant and excited to take our things away.

I feel no regret at all in this. I feel honored in fact that our stuff can make other people happy. That our furniture can fill someone else’s house. Today it was a bed, a dresser, and two bookshelves that served us well. Off it goes to a new home as we smile and watch it leave.

My goodness, I have so many dreams for this year. I refuse to make resolutions. I refuse to set standards anymore other than to live life as simply as I can. To always be mindful and have gratitude. Not a “you should be lucky to have this” gratitude. Rather, a “thank you for this gift” kind of gratitude. A gratitude loved and cherished and nurtured.

I would love this year to cure my disease of perfectionism, of never good enough.  I believe I can. I believe I can formulate my own natural cure. A concoction of some hot coffee, a good book, a journal, and mix that in with some warm winds and the sound of birds singing.  To just come to a full stop and sit in silence.  Perhaps to grab a few crayons and color (which is what I did last night).

Here is to a bright and peaceful and warm 2018.

I am breathing in 2018 and looking ever forward to this brand New Year. This is a year of new beginnings, new travels, and new places.  This is a new year where there will be communal living. Where there will be a grand reduction of stuff and material objects. This will be a year of creativity and of finding myself and who I really am.

For the longest time I have been two Amy’s.  One Amy the good little girl who always always tried to do the right and good thing.  Who had such high standards for perfection in herself.  Who set impossibly high standards and who never really measured up.

Then there was the Amy who rebelled against that. Who tore all that down. Who pouted in a corner, who yearned to get messy, make mistakes, and take chances.  The good little girl tried so desperately to squash her and the bad girl, not to be denied reached right around her and did it anyway.  This rebellious Amy even took the good little girl’s hands and ripped her skin over and over.  She made outrageous and hazardous moves that could really tear everything apart.  She needed to be heard.

“You are not perfect!”  Rebellious Amy screamed. “You are human.  You need to make mistakes.  You need to mess up. You simply need to be.”

The good Amy often times refuse to listen.  She rationalized and she wrote.  She tried to do her best.  However, she was insecure always.  Never secure in anything she thought.

I don’t wish to be two people anymore.  I don’t wish to be good Amy on one day, bad Amy on the other.  Black and white.  I want to simply be one being.

A few weeks back I went over to Goodwill and picked up a wonderful selection of books. One of those was  “One Day at a time in Al-anon.”  The other book was “Simple Abundance:  A Daybook of Comfort and Joy.”

I am not an alcoholic.  However, I do display a lot of the perfectionist tendencies that lead to addictive behaviors.  I am a skin picker.  My skin is like my alcohol.  It brings me my own temporary coping mechanism.

These day by day, one day at a time philosophies has been the healing salve that I have much needed.  Perfectionists always feel that the world should never see what they feel inside which is never good enough, never important enough, never right enough. They hide it deep down. However, what they think is hidden is actually right there on the surface.  People can see it, actually they are way more visible than people who are actually quite content with themselves.

So this next year, as I write my book about 4 very dear men who have changed my life and who threw me on a journey I never knew I needed to take, I open myself fully on this blog.  I am vulnerable and I am not by any means perfect.

My vision board is to be true to myself.  To learn how to exercise my “no” muscle.  To grow and learn.  To write here often.  To simply be and breathe and take things one day at a time.

I am a stranger

Staring into the existence of your life

Already knowing the outcomes

Championing the triumphs

Rationalizing the mistakes

I follow you throughout your journey

Stand by your side

I take you in as much as possible

Putting yourself on me

Admittedly sometimes the fit is tight

or much to loose

But no adjustments can be made

It is me who must adapt to you

Learn to make myself big or make myself small

Why you do the things you do

Why you feel the way you feel

Turning the nonsense into gospel

Singing your music

Becoming your culture

I just read an article today regarding the changes in Amazon and how authors and publishers get paid.  Now there is no way to tell who is a third party seller or a publisher.  Whom does the check go too now?

Last night I watched Blade Runner with my husband.  I loved it.  It cost millions of dollars to make and did horribly at the box office.  It was essentially an art piece but in these fickle audience times that doesn’t neccessarily mean much.

Art is cheap.

Why do we artists think we can actually make a solid living at it?  Is it really possible?  Art is the one thing we so often give away for free.  All the time.  Books, music, photographs, artwork, everything.  It is free.  So where does that leave the artist then?

It leaves him or her starving as always.

I think I know the reason why.  Art is not supposed to be subjected to the likes of greed and money making.  It is supposed to be a respite for the masses.  A therapeutic tool.  A way to escape from the monotonous 9 to 5 of the average Joe work day.

The artist simply provides that for them.

As an artist myself that is difficult to accept but I understand it.  Art is the true socialistic enterprise, is it not?  People creating beauty for the people to enjoy.   It is the act of creating that is not only beneficial to the artist making it but the audience that enjoys it.

You throw in marketing, you throw in the possiblity of making some money at it and you are instantly labeled a “sell out.”  So then you ask, “Well how should the artist support him or herself then?”  The simple answer?  Get a day job.

I don’t like that answer one single bit.  However, as I walk through the used bookstores and buy books for a dollar who am I to judge?

Perhaps then this will be where the true artists emerge.  This is certainly not a business where you can make a quick buck. That much is clear. You can’t.  This business requires your heart  in every way possible.  It is quickly becoming a true act of charity.  It will soon separate the wheat from the chaff.  If there isn’t any money to be made then those in it for the money will leave.  Those in it for art itself will remain.

I have written about you all day

Studied all your moves

Listened to your rambling voice in my head

Oh muse you are always with me

Demanding that I listen

Get your story right

Angry when I go wrong

The path of writing you gets dangerous

I want to veer off into something you may not be

you guide me back to where you are

“Hear me,” you say. “I am not all one way or the other.

I sometimes act for no reason

I sometimes reason but do not act

And you may not always know the difference.”

So tonight as I close the day

Tuck you into bed

Turn your volume down

I bid you a sweet good night

Stay the hell out of my dreams for once

So I can greet you fresh in the morning

After the death of my father last year my family and I flew up to Oregon to stay with my mother-in-law.

Dad’s death had left me worn down and physically damaged.  The strength it took to carry him through those last days left me in need of some care.  Some healing time and some much needed rest.

Our escape to Oregon would provide just that.

My mother-in-law’s house was a deserved respite.  The house is not particularly out of the ordinary.  Just a basic two story house located up in the hills of Eugene.  Wood floors and carpet.  Walls filled with paintings provided by my step father-in-law’s mother.  The entire house has an aura of relaxation, of late night conversations over good food and good drink.  It was a discussing place, an artistic refuge, it was a place to create.

I could tell you every detail about this house.  Wide, open kitchen filled with windows that open on to the front yard.  A wall of windows.  The whole place is filled with windows.  The first thing I loved to do was open all the blinds and be engulfed in a wall of light.

Ever time I visit I trudge upstairs to my sister-in-laws bedroom since she has a balcony.  She always lets my family stay in there while she sleeps downstairs.  And for some reason I always feel the need to make that bedroom my own.  I rearrange furniture, move beds and dressers.  I always leave that room exactly the way I found it but while I am there, I am truly there.  That room becomes my sanctuary and I claim every space.

I readily admit I become lazy and selfish during this trip.  This is such the place to do that.  This is the place to sleep late, eat breakfast in the afternoon, journey into town and have a late dinner.  This is a place to have my mother-in-law make tons of popcorn cooked in brown paper bags.  To drink the best coffee.  And to sit on the couch and watch movies, read books, and write endlessly.

It was a place to grieve, to do nothing, to escape from the world inside a loving space.  That house most certainly represented that to me.

These are sacred days. This time last year I witnessed the last surviving days of my father. The whole world outside his hospital window continued to go on but I existed in a slow motion time. Simply counting out the hours and measuring his breaths.

The first night I spent with him I was alone. I came equipped with a journal, soft drink, some snacks,  a hastily purchased change of clothes,  and the book, Shantaram, recommended to me by my husband’s cousin. All my necessities needed for this sojourn.

That night I never slept. My goal was to keep Dad alive until morning and when one has that goal, a restful sleep is not an option. So after telling my Dad several times to breathe, I got out of my makeshift bed.  I turned on the television to a nature show, held my Dad’s hand, and started reading aloud from my book.

It was all I could think of to do.  My worst fear was that my Dad was terrified and I longed for him to be at peace. Reading aloud and holding his hand, felt to me like a strong guidance and reassurance for him. I was there, things were okay, and I wasn’t going anywhere. Any updates hospital staff brought into his room were quickly silenced.  All news was to be received outside his room and out of his earshot.

I remember all I could do in those slow moments was keep the room organized.  Trash and disorder gave me purpose. I had bedkeeping tasks. I cleaned up the used paper coffee cups, straightened up the flowers, set used food trays out for the hospital staff to take, swabbed my Dad’s mouth with ice water as he could no longer take in any food or liquids.  These quiet little routines that kept the place neat and tidy, and most importantly functional.  This was a hospice room and to me a place of holiness, and with that holiness came those necessary rituals.

I felt like the room was almost a living presence meant to see my Dad through his final days.  It was marked apart from the others by a flower card placed on the door.  A signal to staff and knowledgeable families that this room was to be respected.  Entrance here required a kind, soft voice, and gentle hands.  Here the hope of survival was gone and the quiet acquiesence of impendeding death remained.

The only real intrusion to this acceptance of death was the blood pressure machine that entered my Dad’s room every few hours or so.  After several times, I told the staff enough.  No more machines.  No more tracking of just how quickly his death was approaching. It was like a visible tangible countdown. One that seemed a direct violation of the natural process of dying. It felt like a shove, a hurry up and say what you need to say, kind of thing. It would tear my mom apart each time that benign little white machine was rolled in. When the pressure cuff squeezed my Dad’s arm and continually found a lower and lower pressure reading.

On the day of his death, two days later, I had gone home to sleep for a few hours. I had spent two sleepless nights by my Dad’s bedside and it was time to go home.  I knew instinctively that that would be the last time I would see him alive, and I felt that he would not want me to see him die.

I woke up that afternoon with the weight of an elephant on my chest. My inner workings had seemed to build up a wall of firm resolve all on their own. No doubt intended to give my face and movements the appearance of placid calm, confidence and surety. Up to that moment only my stomach had suffered. I could barely take in any food and coffee burned me like acid. Now my body was alerting me to the rest of my pains. I was exhausted. My muscles, the overtight screws that held up my wall, ached.  My duty of keeping watch over my Dad during those nights and days, making sure that death would enter with comfort rather than fear, was now over, and it was time for me to recover.

At 4:15pm on June 29, 2016 my Dad passed. A time that made us smile. 415 was a law enforcement code for “disturbance” and a term my Dad loved to use in a joking matter.  He passed away surrounded by one of best friends and his brother. My mom had left to go get something to eat.  The only time she left his side that day.  He passed away the way he wanted to, I think. I look back on that time and hope I made those last few days for him somewhat tolerable. It was a difficult time but a sacred one. My Dad knew he was well loved my so many.  I miss him daily but feel the light of his love still.