Swimming
I didn't really care about swimming. I lived in this condo for over 2 years without using the pool. The only bathing suit I'd owned I left on the east coast about 7 years ago. Then, thanks to LandsEnd and the helpful lady who can tell you what size to get if you are disproportional (see Miranda's blog for more details on Family Physique), I purchased a bathing suit.
I've taken a lot of vacation days since Kyle's death. It's been ridiculously hot, and I had to do some exercise, so swimming it was. Now I'm addicted. Well, almost. I still have worse addictions (see Bad Coping Strategies below). But I'm swimming almost daily. About 20 laps, or 40 lengths (it's not such a long pool). That's about 24 minutes. And it's helping my lousy knee (injured first while dancing around the living room to Al Green; second while walking on cobblestones in Edinburgh). Much better than OT.
My first problem with swimming was how to count laps. There is nothing worse (well, of course there IS, but go with me on this) than losing count of your laps. One doesn't want to cheat, one DOES want credit for every damned lap completed. To keep count, I would swim to the other side and make a mark on the cement side with my wet finger, but on hot days the fingerprints would dry up before I returned. So then I started swimming in sets. I swim one lap with the breast stroke, one with the crawl, two more laps--one on each side--with the side stroke, and finally one lap on my back. I don't do the backstroke, more on this later. I complete four sets and, bingo, that's 20 laps. I check my start time, so that if I lose count of sets, I can figure it out. Sets take 6 minutes, you see.
I have a different relationship with each stroke. And I don't do them correctly, but so what. I love the breast stroke; it is simple and gentle and I don't have to get my face wet right away. I can't get the frog kick and the breast stroke in sync so I'm doing some sort of bastardized half kick thing. I hate the crawl, cause it actually takes effort, but I cheat on that too, not putting my head in as you're supposed to. I love the side stroke--I glide like a long thin knife through the water, and by now I have half my head in the water cause it really makes for the best glide. And finally, the piece de resistance: lying flat on my back, doing the flutter kick, I move my arms up and down--a backstroke without breaking the surface--my arms under water making slow strokes as if I were a bird flapping in thick thick air. It feels so good. I feel strong and I cover a lot of distance. I stare up into the sky and think 'Those birds have nothing on me." Who needs to fly in the air; I'm flying through the water. And when I'm through I've completed another set.
I combine my Mindful Awareness with Swimming. I see the colors of the pool (Hockney really got it right with his turquoise and white), see the tall eucalyptus trees way overhead, follow birds and planes, listen to my breath and the pool motor when my ears are under water, and focus on the strength of my under-water-winging.
And I think about Kyle. And I think about my next blog. And I think about Miranda. And I think about Kyle.
. . . . . . . .
but, of course, after writing the last blog, i didn't go swim. i watched a mediocre TV movie and enjoyed every minute of it.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Coping Strategies
Bad Coping Strategies include:
Eating
Sleeping
Watching TV
Watching TV while eating
Good Coping Strategies include:
Blogging
Being with friends
Walking
Swimming
Mindfulness
I knew a bit about Mindfulness before I took the Mindful Awareness class at UCLA and I couldn't have picked a better time to learn it in greater depth. Mindfulness is basically about being in and staying in The Here and Now. It's not hugely different from other forms of meditation at first glance, but I couldn't at this point sound very intelligent trying to tell you how it differs. But MA has definitely been helpful. Although it is hard to say how much of my new found calm is Grief and Exhaustion versus Being Mindfully Aware. Suffice it to say, that I now have a way to stop, be in the moment, bring myself to a centered peaceful state, stay there quite a while, and resume life ALK again. I highly recommend it.
Eating
Sleeping
Watching TV
Watching TV while eating
Good Coping Strategies include:
Blogging
Being with friends
Walking
Swimming
Mindfulness
I knew a bit about Mindfulness before I took the Mindful Awareness class at UCLA and I couldn't have picked a better time to learn it in greater depth. Mindfulness is basically about being in and staying in The Here and Now. It's not hugely different from other forms of meditation at first glance, but I couldn't at this point sound very intelligent trying to tell you how it differs. But MA has definitely been helpful. Although it is hard to say how much of my new found calm is Grief and Exhaustion versus Being Mindfully Aware. Suffice it to say, that I now have a way to stop, be in the moment, bring myself to a centered peaceful state, stay there quite a while, and resume life ALK again. I highly recommend it.
Thanksgiving 2006
Here is last Thanksgiving's meal Devon commented on. That's Kyle on the left, Jesse in the middle, and Devon on the right. I know, guys, it's not a great picture. The flash is reflecting in the mirror, Ky has taken off his glasses and is giving me the "MOM, CUT IT OUT" look, and Devon is trying to smile and swallow at the same time. But it's all we have, so up it goes!Usually Ky had Thanksgiving with his dad; I hadn't cooked a turkey since I can remember. But sister Sallie was here and she's a great chef and I made the Best Gravy Ever in the World. And missing from the photo are Sallie, Ben, Alan, and me. Whatever will we do this Thanksgiving . . . .
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Thinking about Kyle & food
Frosted carrot-cake muffins from TJ's
Roscoe's chicken and waffles
Omelets at Cindy's
Eggs, bacon, and potatoes at home
Popovers
Chicken with 4o cloves of garlic
Pasta with broccoli and cheese
Pasta with prosciutto, spinach, & garlic
Fish sauteed in corn meal
Fish tacos
Sandwiches w/ everything on them
Reese's peanut butter cups
Peanut butter cookies
Peanut butter in cereal with milk
Chocolate bars with raspberry filling
Pecan pie
Tapatio Sauce
When up north calling me up to ask about
ingredients in a meal he was making,
or to ask if it's safe to eat something that's
been opened in the fridge for a while like
tartar sauce. Kyle making a meal and setting off the
fire alarm. Becoming a great cook, even
cooking for me sometimes. Sitting down
to eat slowly and luxuriously. Getting a bit better
about cleaning up the last couple of years.
Roscoe's chicken and waffles
Omelets at Cindy's
Eggs, bacon, and potatoes at home
Popovers
Chicken with 4o cloves of garlic
Pasta with broccoli and cheese
Pasta with prosciutto, spinach, & garlic
Fish sauteed in corn meal
Fish tacos
Sandwiches w/ everything on them
Reese's peanut butter cups
Peanut butter cookies
Peanut butter in cereal with milk
Chocolate bars with raspberry filling
Pecan pie
Tapatio Sauce
When up north calling me up to ask about
ingredients in a meal he was making,
or to ask if it's safe to eat something that's
been opened in the fridge for a while like
tartar sauce. Kyle making a meal and setting off the
fire alarm. Becoming a great cook, even
cooking for me sometimes. Sitting down
to eat slowly and luxuriously. Getting a bit better
about cleaning up the last couple of years.
Monday, September 3, 2007
The Music Man
At Ky's burial and at his memorial, on the graffiti/writers' website tributes, in letters and emails, Kyle's relationship with music was a continuing theme.
He loved music from early on: I remember him bopping (it was certainly more than swaying) to music way before he could walk. I did my best to indoctrinate my children to motown by giving them quarters in the car when they could name an artist. One time Ky hopefully guessed "Smokey Pickett?" I gave him the quarter anyway. Gearey was always introducing new music into the house. The whole family loved Oh Mercy, and I think it was Kyle who put on my leather jacket and moved around the living room singing "Man in a Long Black Coat." By age 11 he was calling up KROQ for bumper stickers and he and Miranda introduced me to "alternative" around that time. He had the 101.1 FM 60s and 70s play list down, and soon was saying, "Mom, you gotta get some better music. All they do is repeat the same songs. You've heard these millions of times."
Middle school transitioned to high school. Ky got into what I remember as Acid Rock, which I didn't much like the first time. There were the Curt Cobain years, which coincided with his feeling badly about his relationship to school, so I was a bit wary. He definitely got into old Dylan (whom I value next to Shakespeare); I know because my Dylan CD's kept disappearing from their jewel cases.
Then Ky got into rap and hip-hop and finally, reggae. Knowing I liked blues, he would play me Muddy Waters or surprise me with something like a cut of James Brown singing blues. Reggae definitely became prominent, yet he did seem open to learning more and more. His iPod, with 942 songs had 80% reggae (old roots reggae), rap, R & B, blues, classic oldies (i.e., Sly & The Family Stone's "Do You Want Me to Stay?" and Ray Charles' "Let's Go Get Stoned."), and music from the groups he'd recently seen at concerts.
Clare, our wonderful clinic coordinator at NPI, helped me with Ky's computer; she cleaned up his hard drive, saved a bunch of stuff on a CD so I would have it, and then announced that there was no way to get off the music.
She explained that he had a 50 GB hard drive and that only about 7 GB is usually taken up to install windows and a few programs, so that left him with 43GB for stuff. 40 GB of that stuff was his music. She translated what that meant:
"You could say that the average file size for one song is 4.5MB (1GB=1024MB). So if you do the math, that's over 9000 songs. To put them on CDs that would play in your car or in a regular CD player it would be over 500 CDs (15-16 songs per CD)."
"I went to college in the days of Napster--where you could download everything off the internet for free--without the worry of getting in trouble. I think that craze was coming to a close my junior or senior year--right around when Kyle was starting college. " (I remember that Ky was a napster fiend.)
"But in my opinion," Clare concluded, "It takes a real music lover to pick 9000 songs to download or to burn off CDs."
I've tried to put the word out. About those 9000 songs that are on his Dell computer? Anyone is welcome to come and burn a CD so you have some of Ky's tune to carry around with you. I'm around on Sundays.
He loved music from early on: I remember him bopping (it was certainly more than swaying) to music way before he could walk. I did my best to indoctrinate my children to motown by giving them quarters in the car when they could name an artist. One time Ky hopefully guessed "Smokey Pickett?" I gave him the quarter anyway. Gearey was always introducing new music into the house. The whole family loved Oh Mercy, and I think it was Kyle who put on my leather jacket and moved around the living room singing "Man in a Long Black Coat." By age 11 he was calling up KROQ for bumper stickers and he and Miranda introduced me to "alternative" around that time. He had the 101.1 FM 60s and 70s play list down, and soon was saying, "Mom, you gotta get some better music. All they do is repeat the same songs. You've heard these millions of times."
Middle school transitioned to high school. Ky got into what I remember as Acid Rock, which I didn't much like the first time. There were the Curt Cobain years, which coincided with his feeling badly about his relationship to school, so I was a bit wary. He definitely got into old Dylan (whom I value next to Shakespeare); I know because my Dylan CD's kept disappearing from their jewel cases.
Then Ky got into rap and hip-hop and finally, reggae. Knowing I liked blues, he would play me Muddy Waters or surprise me with something like a cut of James Brown singing blues. Reggae definitely became prominent, yet he did seem open to learning more and more. His iPod, with 942 songs had 80% reggae (old roots reggae), rap, R & B, blues, classic oldies (i.e., Sly & The Family Stone's "Do You Want Me to Stay?" and Ray Charles' "Let's Go Get Stoned."), and music from the groups he'd recently seen at concerts.
Clare, our wonderful clinic coordinator at NPI, helped me with Ky's computer; she cleaned up his hard drive, saved a bunch of stuff on a CD so I would have it, and then announced that there was no way to get off the music.
She explained that he had a 50 GB hard drive and that only about 7 GB is usually taken up to install windows and a few programs, so that left him with 43GB for stuff. 40 GB of that stuff was his music. She translated what that meant:
"You could say that the average file size for one song is 4.5MB (1GB=1024MB). So if you do the math, that's over 9000 songs. To put them on CDs that would play in your car or in a regular CD player it would be over 500 CDs (15-16 songs per CD)."
"I went to college in the days of Napster--where you could download everything off the internet for free--without the worry of getting in trouble. I think that craze was coming to a close my junior or senior year--right around when Kyle was starting college. " (I remember that Ky was a napster fiend.)
"But in my opinion," Clare concluded, "It takes a real music lover to pick 9000 songs to download or to burn off CDs."
I've tried to put the word out. About those 9000 songs that are on his Dell computer? Anyone is welcome to come and burn a CD so you have some of Ky's tune to carry around with you. I'm around on Sundays.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
I'll get by with a little help . . .
i have the best friends in the world. they are all here for me right now. they call, email, leave phone messages. i've started to go out a bit: we grab a bite, see a movie, walk, swim. maybe just exchange emails or talk on the phone. they ask how i'm doing. and then they listen as i go on and on, verbalizing every insight i get, exploring every question i am struggling to answer, expressing every weird turn of emotion. they hand me tissues when i inevitably start to choke up and tear. they take my hand. i have had more hugs in these (OMIGOD IS IT REALLY???) eight weeks since ky's death than i had in 15 years in the theatre.
i try to--and do--ask questions about them. about their work, relationships, kids, health--but soon the topic of conversation has turned and i am talking again. i feel bad about this, but only to a point, because this talking, this telling of my Life After Losing Kyle in all its many twists and turns and up and downs, is so very helpful. being listened to, being heard, being understood is the best medicine right now.
but one more thing about these friends: they understand when i can't be with them, return a call, bear to speak or see a soul. my friends really get it. i love you all so much and i am so grateful to have you in my life.
i try to--and do--ask questions about them. about their work, relationships, kids, health--but soon the topic of conversation has turned and i am talking again. i feel bad about this, but only to a point, because this talking, this telling of my Life After Losing Kyle in all its many twists and turns and up and downs, is so very helpful. being listened to, being heard, being understood is the best medicine right now.
but one more thing about these friends: they understand when i can't be with them, return a call, bear to speak or see a soul. my friends really get it. i love you all so much and i am so grateful to have you in my life.
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