Imperfections

Having a house that we own has made me keenly aware of all of it's little imperfections. We're not DIYers, Husband and I, so when we were looking at houses we were very careful to pick one that did not need a lot of work. We didn't by new, however, because I am of the strong opinion that houses just aren't made like they used to be. I like solid walls and exteriors with a little character. I like original hardwood floors.

Our house is fifty years old - not too old and not too new. It has most definitely been updated at least once (obviously in the kitchen area) and has been painted countless times. It has weird wall cubbies and odd, handmade built-ins. It has a fairly ugly bar in the basement that was mostly likely superneat in the 80's. It has fifty years of imperfections.

When I was painting the guest room I noticed that the trim isn't flush with the floor. You can see, if you look closely, that the walls were once grass green, and then we're-having-a-girl-pink, and then khaki brown. Where the trim doesn't meet the floor you can see the faded stain of the original oak, now a pale green color. In some rooms the boards were cut wrong and you can see the dingy grey wood of the subfloor.

If we were more OCD (and richer), we would have small pieces of hardwood cut to fill in the gaps and then even out the stain so that everything is uniform. We would take off the trim and reattach it so that it's flush with the floor. Maybe we'd even buy brand new wood to replace the chipping, over-painted stuff that is there.

We started out like that - looking to fill in all the little blemishes and make the house "new" - but after a couple of weeks of painting ceilings and sanding wall compound off of cracks (that was Husband's work, unfortunately for his neck), we have started to let the little imperfections go. Ceilings that are not perfectly even, despite Husbands hard work, will stay slightly uneven. A line that goes a little wonky on the chair rail of the guest bedroom will now simply "add character".

We could get out the paint again and go over that line but we're beginning to accept the minor details that will make our house our home.

It makes me introspective. All my imperfections are highlighted, inspected and accepted. My bowl-full-jelly belly is seemingly unchanging and so, while I keep my diet fairly clean and regular, I am starting to believe that I'm not actually fat, after all.

This one errant gray hair that has sprouted at the crown of my head stays there, a mark of aging gracefully instead of with angst.

 

A scar I got when I was in grade school during an unfortunate game of tug-o-war played on asphalt is basically ignored. No one ever notices it anyway.

 

Mainly because - despite life's millions of imperfections - there are amazingly beautiful things that make up for them.

Having guests on our deck for a barbeque, even before we have furniture for it. Days and days of rain and clouds that are keeping it cool inside while we wait to have our broken air conditioner to be fixed.

The first bloom in my garden, open. Finishing the guest bedroom just in time to have my mother visit our home, which she has not seen yet.

And this - being late for work but just in time to see the horses let out to pasture (my favorite moment of the whole day) and happening to have my camera with me. I couldn't resist swinging around to take a photo of her, racing around so happily, finally free to enjoy the cool morning air.

She was born this year, in early spring, and you can tell that she hasn't even seen a saddle yet. There are no imperfections in her life.

Even if there were, she wouldn't care one little bit.

That Weird Thing I Did

I often do weird things. I'm a weird girl - anyone can attest to that. Sometimes, though, I do things that are weird even by my standards.

I tried Biofeedback. Actually, it's increasingly common, but for me it was pretty strange. I've been resigned to taking drugs for my depression / mood disorder for a long time now. I've accepted the consequences; I've accepted that some people might not agree that I should need to take them. I've accepted that I know my body and what it needs. Drugs are a part of my daily life.

I'm a druggie.

The last time I was at the psychiatrist for those episodes to tinker with my meds, she said I might need some different kind of therapist. I've seen cognitive therapists all my life, but maybe with this mood disorder, she thought, I should try something more like dialectical therapy. I'd never heard of that but I'm open to trying things so I pulled up the old health insurance provider listing and picked a few that I could call. Naturally the first one I reached didn't offer dialectical therapy at all - he offered biofeedback.

But I'd heard a little about biofeedback before and it was something I'd wanted to try. What if I could simply alter my brain waves? Wouldn't that be easier than pills every day for the rest of my life? Biofeedback is, simply put, the training of ones brain to respond better to life by measuring it's reactions to it. The training can be done using meditation, breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation. Most of the Biofeedback articles I'd read centered about light and sound therapy (which is more in the family of Neurofeedback, actually), wherein the patient is subjected to varying wave lengths of the two in order to subtly alter the brain's firing mechanisms. 

Why not, I thought? I’m one of those people who believe that the moon cycles affect our mood so this isn’t so far-fetched.

I made the appointment and on a very rainy Monday I followed my GPS to the office. I didn’t know what to expect but I was dubious, to say the least.

I entered what appeared to be the doctor’s house and was greeted by no one. Even though the windows were opened the place was warm and smelled pungently of animal.

“Hello?” I called out.

“Hello,” a barefooted man came out of an office to greet me. “Go ahead and sit there at that desk and fill out some paperwork for me.”

He pointed to an antique desk to the left of his fireplace where two pages had been laid out neatly. I obeyed, picking up a pen to start writing and then rejecting it because it was sticky. I was judging this situation harshly, I knew, but I have high expectations for a therapist of any kind.

I filled out the general information and check marked the necessary boxes to describe why I was there and was led into the office by the doctor. Only later would I find out that he is not a doctor of any kind.

The office was cluttered and smelled similarly to the entrance. I sat down in a large black chair that was flanked by computer screens and electrical boxes with knobs and little piles of foam dots that hearkened up images of electroshock therapy from the 1950’s. Small putty knives – the kind typically used for painting – put me slightly on edge.

“So, tell me why you are here. What are we going to work on.”

No, that's not what he said first – first he made some joke about the kind of company I work in. Something not at all related to me in any way. “I used to be a career counselor, I know someone in that field,” he justified.

Then he asked about me.

I explained to him about the episodes and he asked me to label them on a scale of one to ten. As if I had a frame of reference. Were they better or worse than most people’s episodes? Maybe he didn’t mean that, but it’s what I heard.

“So, how does this work, exactly?” I asked him.

“Well – “ he paused.

“I mean, scientifically, how is this supposed to make me better?”

“I mean, we don’t really know,” he said, clearly unable to give me the science behind what he does. I looked down to see that he had taken off his shoes. “But most of my patients report that after their sessions they feel more relaxed and balanced.”

I am sure that my face read displeasure with that answer. He tried to save himself with some more talk about what we would do and how it would work but I’d already paid my co-pay and didn’t really care. I would read about it later on the internet.

A few more minutes of blah blah passed before he connected me to the electrodes. He put in the movie I had chosen – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – and started doing something. I wasn’t sure what, at first. The movie dimmed and flickered and a low level hum came from somewhere to my right. The screen opposing the movie was registering tiny scratches at the top of a mass of numbers that meant nothing to me.

“This is twenty, let’s see how it goes.” he said. Then, as an afterthought, he asked, “Oh, you don’t have a history of seizures or anything like that, right? You weren’t dropped a lot or beaten around the head as a kid?”

“No, I wasn’t.” But maybe you should have asked me before you turned on these machines, huh? 

“Sheltered childhood, then?” he chuckled at his own joke.

“No, not really,” I replied. I found his comment in seriously poor taste.

He shut his mouth, then – except for laughing at the jokes in the movie which I also found irritating – and tinkered with the numbers, asking how I felt after each change in frequency. At 20 I felt generally irritated and tired but nothing special. At 25 I zoned out and felt an all over sensation of tingling, just the way you do when someone runs their fingers through their hair. I wanted to smile a little more (but resisted because I didn’t want the guy to think he was doing anything). He played around with 26 and then 24 where I found that I was slowly grinding my incisors together for no reason. Then we were done.

Hesitantly I made another appointment. I was curious about the effects of the machines but I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back to the office that smelled like cat. There would be side effects, he cautioned, and I should note them and email him about it after twenty-four hours.

I left his house, still dubious.

As for what it actually did, I’m not totally sure. The first day I felt a certain sense of apathy about various things that happened – not in a totally unpleasant way – but also acute fatigue. I slept like a log two nights in a row and it was so delicious but it never seemed to be enough. I found myself dozing off at my desk and behind the wheel of my car, propping myself up on caffeine to stay awake for a full day. The second day had me irritable from all the sleepiness.

“Should I be concerned about this?” I emailed the doctor.

“If it’s really bothersome, you can come in for a tune up,” he replied. He assured me that the fatigue wouldn’t last.

I googled him, then, and I decided I wouldn’t go back. Although very curious about what Biofeedback could actually do for me, I was put off when one of the articles I read stated in very clear terms that any good practitioner would have run a battery of tests on me to find out if it was safe for me to be doing it. Obviously that had not happened, and his profile wasn’t exactly edifying, either. He had an M.A. in psychology and a certification in NeuroCARE Pro (whatever that way) and maybe that is normal for one of these people but I think I had in mind someone a little more clinical. A real doctor in a white lab coat. Or at least someone cleaner, in shoes.

I had tried it, though. I wasn’t totally unconvinced that it could work, but I decided to table it until I could find someone a little more legitimate feeling and re-opened the health insurance listings to find myself a new couch to sit on.

How Does Your Garden Grow

Last week, on a particularly nice day, I went and bought some things to start my garden. I've never had a garden of my own before and so I wasn't even exactly sure how to go about it. I didn't want vegetables. Not only is it too late in the season for it, but we have too much shade and we don't eat a wide enough variety of vegetables for me to fill a garden with. I thought about herbs but, again, the sun played in. There is one corner of the yard that gets sun most of the day and it's where we keep the trash cans at the moment. I nixed that idea for later on down the road.

No, what I wanted was a flower garden. Not just any old flower garden, but one to emulate Host Mom's garden back in Meudon. Honestly, she had the tiniest, most beautiful flower garden I've ever seen. I remember thinking once how crazy she was to be out in that garden in all kinds of weather any time of the year but when it bloomed there were no words to describe it. I thieved so many lovely bouquets from that little corner of her home, I cannot even begin to count. I want that.

So, one trip to the nursery and a hundred some odd dollars later I made a small start. I'm no fool, I know that cultivating that kind of garden takes real time (in years). And I'm not rich, either, so my hopes of planting a beautiful pink peony bush and a couple of roses were quickly dashed when I saw how much each little shrub was going to cost me. No amount of haggling could make them fit into my budget this year.

Instead I began like this.

Aside from the obligatory hostas and ornamental grass I shoved in some day lilies, lily of the valley, hyacinth, aster and pink lamium. I picked a couple of things for edging like mouses ear and wandering jew (which I secretly love because of it's scandalous name) and called it a day. In my head the whole garden would be filled but in reality it is still sparse. I will have to be patient. I suppose that is what gardening is about, really.

On the opposing side of the stone path (which was conveniently there already) I decided I would plant grass. Briefly I played with the idea of buying sod but as I have no idea what I am capable of keeping alive I decided it would be a waste of money. One bag of Shady Nook seed and some very heavy rains later, I had this:

I couldn't be happier. In a week, no less! I can't yet tell if it will grow in fully (or stay alive) but I've got my fingers crossed.

The afore mentioned heavy rains - which were actually part of a tropical storm hell bent on flooding most of the area - battered my little plants pretty good. The lamium looks a little haggared and the lily of the valley needs a vacation, but the other stuff seems to have weathered the storm quite well. Which, if I am honest about my horticultural abilities, is really just the kind of thing I need to start with. 

But it gives me hope that I might not fail at this gardening thing after all. If I don't kill the majority of my plants I will reward myself with a rose bush for my birthday.

For the moment I'm content to simply sit and watch my grass grow.