The Beth/Squirrel Reunion: Scruffy, Parkour and Son of Psycho

Yesterday I woke up, I could see the sun shine and I said, as I was lifted out of bed, “Let’s go see the squirrels.” Which since Linda didn’t have an appointment for 1 hour and 45 minutes meant that was possible due to the NEW electric wheelchair (referred to DT: for that DAMN THING for the rest of this blog).

Since I had showered the day before it was get dressed, or be dressed and get shoes on and go, go go. But still that took up the 45 minutes, as Linda wanted me to drink stuff, and eat stuff and stuff had to be packed for safety. Well, our old elevator tends to leave a few inches to climb up, so arriving at the bottom floor was FOUR inches, so even in Tank Mode, I couldn’t climb it. I went up a floor and came down and tried again, got two inches to climb up this time (the elevator lotto) and we headed outside. Took me all of about 30 seconds to realize we forgot my lap robe (linda snagged one from the van) and I took out the now hugely oversized rain jacket for warmth. It was sunny, but there was also snow in the shade so a degree or two above freezing….and the wind was blowing.

But we got to the park in record time which also bruised a record number of my ribs, spine and muscles. See, in other cities, curb cuts go to the street level. In Victoria, just to show how special we are, we like to keep them two inches above street level, or higher! So with 25 of those to hit between me and the park I learned the difference between a manual and an electric chair. In a manual, you are low down, you can flip up casters and lean forward to jump the curb, you are in control, you are driving a titanium Ferrari. On an electric, you are the luggage tied to the top of the bus going up the mountain passes in Central America. The luggage which is bumped open halfway, or smashed from the forces. I learned that driving at HIGH SPEED toward a giant curb cut bump only makes my spine feel like someone smashed it, along with my torso. I learned that if I went REALLY slow….well, I didn’t learn that because I’ll be damned if I go really slow so I just learned about going normal speed (Ow!) and fast (OW!!!) and Very Fast (OH MY GOD OWWW!). As you can see, while it isn’t EXACTLY spring, there are little bits of flowers showing themselves here and there.
I made it to the park and realized that I am also several feet higher than I am in the other wheelchair, so it is harder to feed the squirrels and I worried and thought they would not think they would come up to my lap to get peanuts. I mean, do they know the smell of me, the smell of my peanut fingers or of the wheelchair? The first squirrel responded to rustling bag and I found did not have any problem crawling up the lap blanket (with my encouragement) to see me. I called this one scruffy as it had some claw marks which had removed fur right behind its head which gave it a scruffy look. I later realized I should have called it: Lazy Ass. But still it was encouraging to have a squirrel actually sit in my lap (since we only had 25 minutes once we got there) on my first trip out of the house and back to the park in a LONG time.

It turned out not to be that difficult at all to have squirrels climb up the wheelchair, even though it was brand new and quite high. Most squirrels who approached where willing to climb up to see me. Here is a different grey squirrel (you can see by the clean neck fur) who has climbed up and decided to eat the peanut on my knee (after such a climb, why not!).
Of course, squirrels are individuals (some with very odd neurotic habits!). So there is always the squirrel who has to make everything twice as difficult. Every OTHER squirrel simply climbed up the front using my legs and the blanket to get to my lap. But not for this black squirrel, who I named Parkour, after the sport where you use urban railings, rooftops or other surfaces to achieve your goal. Did it make his peanut any more satisfying, apparently for him as he went off chortling, “A route no squirrel has taken before!”

Here is a profile shot that Linda took for some reason, maybe to prove that sun shines here in Victoria, I am not sure. You can see in the shot how I drive the DT wheelchair which is by pushing the black joystick (almost invisible here) which is between my index and second finger. There is a delayed reaction, to make sure I have my hand in the right position and then a second later it starts up. Despite the delayed reaction I only lot control and started weaving around on the sidewalk four or five times. DT! The other irritation is that to change modes, from like, Outdoor to Tank Mode, you have to come to a complete stop. I am Elizabeth McClung, I AM Brownian Motion, I do not come to complete stops! This is why instead of doing ALL those curb cuts by stopping, changing modes, climbing curbs, stopping again and changing back to outdoor mode, I tried going faster. OW! Okay that didn’t work, what if we try this curb even FASTER! OWWW. DT!!!

Here Scruffy has returned and, despite the fact that my wheelchair is almost silent has decided it is just TOO MUCH BOTHER to actually move away to eat, but to eat not just next to my chair, but with his tail under it (A Beatrix Potter Tale comes to mind!). This is also the shot which makes me look the LEAST like I am super thin (just thin!). This is why I think of him as Lazy Ass. Here you can see the close up of Scruffy, with the scars on his neck. You can also see that he has part of his nice long tail UNDER my foot plate. And since I came to BOND and love the squirrels, not clean them out of my tire treads, I patiently waited for Lazy Ass to finish, fed him/her another peanut and off Scruffy went!

As we were about to leave I was greeted/assaulted by son of Psycho. Psycho was known for his a) trying to steal Linda’s camera several times, b) trying to steal entire 1 pound or 2 pound bags of peanuts several times, including wresting them from em and c) his fearless attitude. Well, I rattle the bag as we have to go and about 50 yards away this black squirrel pops out of the ferns, sees me and starts doing that squirrel run towards me. Usually at 20 yards or so they stop and pop up their head to check around, then at 5 yards they slow down to give me a good sniff over. The black squirrel, at about 10 yards SPEEDS UP and then does a flying leap onto my blanket. And clambers the rest of the way up. There is no sniffing cautiously about here! I was rather shocked, as I had a brand new chair and according to the seating people the only one in Victoria (which is how they would catch me if I tried to give it away), and this squirrel does a flying LEAP onto me? Is my estrogen that high? Is mating season going that badly for him?
No, it is was the son of Psycho, I could tell he was about 9 months old and he quickly rooted about in my..er...lap. And then started to eat right there, like I was the peanutmobile. Sadly, we were late, and had to take off, so I hope to meet him again since that is one squirrel I am definitely going to remember. Even though we shared but two peanuts together, it was Paris…I mean the Park…in the Spring time, and I’ll be at Rick’s and he’ll walk in…wait, this is Casablanca!

I got out, I got slammed around in order to get home, and then it started snowing, slushing a bit in the afternoon. So not QUITE spring yet but there are hints and hopes. I ended up with a four hour nap due to my fun in the sun, ow! And couldn’t move my arms. I have yet to learn the ‘use less, not more’ – I am so used to using gross muscles, like my shoulder to write, that for this DT wheelchair, I need to ground my elbow, ground my wrist and just use the slightest movement forward, side to side or back, whether I feel it or not. Because using my whole arm and shoulder just ends with a) me out of control – don’t walk beside me on the sidewalk (a good safety tip!) and b) a really sore arm.

Have a great weekend and meet your own friends. One day I plan to work up to HUMANS. I hear they don’t like peanuts as much, but they have more interesting conversations.

Fear: for caregiver, for disabled. And dying.

Spring is supposed to be here, and I think it is trying, though snow lies in the shadows and corners. In this picture Linda says the woman is celebrating the ladybug on the fence. Linda has an..um...interesting view of life sometimes. I think, like me, the woman is just glad to be able to get out, to know that growth is here. The earth turns, the earth rotates around the sun and in this hemisphere as we hurdle a bit closer to the sun it brings us to the annual time of growth. Planets can be pretty nice things sometimes.

Last year, I was getting ready for Japan; what a difference a year makes, eh? I have a book on the anime girls of different prefectures of Japan and I definitely want to find this one. Any place where you can get a sign saying, “Beware, monkeys may steal your clothes” at an onsen is an onsen worth visiting. The paper we were handed by the tourist association and JR which told us at Miyajima that if deer ate our passport or train tickets, they were not responsible. That seemed surreal and a wonderful joke. Then we ran into the German couple whose map HAD been eaten right off the ferry and had been lost ever since.

At Nara, where we not only saw a World Heritage Site (oldest largest wooden building in the world) and were chased by monks (to throw us out after Linda went Camera Whore), I learned the difference between feeding squirrels and deer. That when two deer who are fighting over a harem stop because they believe this object over here has food, you GIVE them the food, and fast. So that way they can go back to smashing their horns against each other. The only serene look I had feeding the deer was when my food was goneand I sat with the bucks that lost and watched the super-aggressive ones mug other people.

Okay, enough procrastinating, right? That was my rather lame intro to fear.

I learned fear the good old fashioned way, helpless, terrified, pain, the usual. But as Linda is finding out, fear can come to anyone. I will show you that in a bit.

See, we grow up and we think that we can't be reduced anymore to the states of fear: the helplessness, the dependence, the lack of choices, the knowledge that being alive is fiscally the worst thing we can be to those we love. We are ADULTS, we aren't little children anymore. How naive. We think we know where our sunny road goes, we have it planned out. The truth is, we don't know if there is a cliff beyond that curve, but this is YOUR road and you have to follow it to the END....regardless.

This is why individuals have petitioned for euthanasia. While I don’t think the people who FEAR ME, or those disabled like me, the people fear those who are disabled should be allowed to petition. But whatever your stance, if you are in a position where your income is fixed, your disease/disability is variable and suddenly change, expensive change is looming, then you are looking at options, bad options. You could be put in a sort of disability/old age prison system we often call nursing homes. You could literally bankrupt your family. You could be dependant for an unlimited number of years. And the fear in your gut, what does it tell you? You have never had days you said inside you would rather be dead than hurt endlessly the ones you love? Well, I have.

That we don’t have an adequate system to give a life, and yes, a death of dignity is the fault of all of us, as we are all part of a society that embraces the diseases which have the best chance, the longest remissions. Maybe after the several thousand strong run/walk for breast cancer there is another one of 10,000 people raising awareness for ALS, or SMA I&II, or many of the hundreds of things from RSD to Gillian-Barre which just strike and change your life forever. Leave you just out of the edge of society and vulnerable...forever.

I have fear everyday. I think it is part of disease, as it is common with those who have mental degeneration. Sometimes, I am ‘having a good day’ and sometimes I am not. And when I not, I am scared, or rather, I don’t know how to hide how scared I am at things and people. I have ‘good hours’ and ‘bad hours’. This is hard because I don’t want to expose myself, I hide it from Linda and Cheryl, just like my Grandmother is still trying to hide it. I’m not in control, not even of myself, and so any change can induce panic. But before I tell all, I will show you how fear works on BOTH sides.

See, this is me, maybe the me you never fully saw, only know the me of this blog. This is the kick-ass, so what, attitude I have/had, that I am going to overcome the world and I have the brains and the drive to do it. I AM larger than life, or I was, and when I good, when I was at my best, this is how I looked; full of joy, full of adventure, and saying ‘come with me.’

And this is what our life together was, it was challenging the world, it was challenging ourselves, because we had each other. We always had each other and Linda knew that if things got bad, I would do what was needed to get it solved. There was always a way, even if it meant working an extra job, even if it meant stopping a dream for a while, it was worth it for her.

And then I became sick, and recently very, very sick. Like I should be dead sick. And she has to watch that. I don’t. I don’t know how sick I was last month, or two months ago because my brain was damaged and maybe I should have taken videos but is that what I want to leave behind, a visual record of my degeneration? I know from the ‘my GOD!’ exclamations of health workers and health professionals that I am not exactly looking rosey. So for Linda, there I am, making a joke, and she can believe, fool herself for a while that THIS is our life. That is when I start to shake, because my brain is literally on fire. And when I have finished bruising myself, I lay there. Or rather I DON’T lay there. A body lays there. A collection of meat in the shape of a body. And ONLY if that body’s brain gets oxygen AND it breathes, if it has brain activity, will that body actually become a person, a loved one. One minute passes. The amount of time to keep the body alive shrinks. You/Linda call to the person inside (are they inside?), you yell at them, you touch them, you do everything the EMT's taught you and two minutes have passed, going on to three. You start breathing for them, because you are afraid. Because in a few minutes your world splits and you HAVE to have this person back, or face being without them.....forever.

And when that happens, when you see the person you love dying. And when it happens enough time, you get angry. Why you? Why this? Why? You didn’t ask to have to endure taking care of a person who you turned to in time of trouble who doesn’t even know your name. Why? And that anger comes out and they see it, and they are not having a ‘good day’ and they are afraid, and they cry and you feel horrible. In fact, at nights you listen to them breathe, or maybe after a while you don’t because you can’t stand how they stop breathing for a while. Eventually you don’t know how many times you have revived them, or helped them in bed as their heart stopped beating correctly change position so they could breathe again. And you start, as you see the progression continue, even speed up, to stop investing yourself so emotionally in them. And the partner, the person you shared your life with, can, on the ‘good days’ feel you drifting away, your face going blank, as you are already preparing yourself for the death. How can I hold on to you, when I am too weak to hold on to life alone? Your hand slips so easy from mine…

This image is from a show called H20:footprints in the Sand, from the poem about the two sets of footprints and how when things got tough, there was only one…..because God was carrying you. And then, as images flash a voice calls, BUT WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I CALLED?

That poem is for those who are hoping for the full recovery, who don't know the minutes of watching a morphine button, or whatever your hell is (and forget that up on the cross, when Jesus call....God WASN'T there). The poem is easy, simple. Living with a disability, a degenerative illness, is anything but easy.

I can only tell my story, and my story is that when I saw the movie Superman, the original, and he rotates the earth back to save his girlfriend, I was angry. Because why didn’t you turn back the earth for me? What was wrong with me? That was probably the number one question I had. And in the end, growing up in a Christian/Old Testament style church/cult the only thing that made sense in the end was that I WAS the sacrifice. Because in every old testament story, like Abraham about to kill his only child because God said to, or Lot offering up his daughters for rape, or King David losing his kingdom and his favorite son; no one ever asks the sacrifice. Their job is just that, to be the sacrifice, the cost that pays for what others have done. That is the cost symbolized in the Azazel: born, and then chosen by God to bear the sins of the people, to die, staked out, a horrible, slow and painful death. This I could relate to: to be staked, to be tied, to be hurt, to be told that I was sin. Soon, I would learn about pain, and fear, and what can be endured.My body as sacrifice I knew. So this is how I made sense of my life. This is why I tried to get God to kill me when I was 20 or so, to show me the face of God. I only learned that I could endure pain, more pain I thought possible, but I could not die. That to go forward was always opposition, or someone to stand up for, more abuse to absorb; and I gain my Doctorate in time to get a disease that destroys the brain. This is why I have no questions, because I am doing my job. If you have anger or hatred, send it to me, email it to me, yell it to me, whisper it to me. Because that is what happens, and the fear I feel, the agony is the job that I have been created for.

You see, I waited, and waited, through days and nights, and things so bad, and weeks and months and years that are best forgotten, if they weren’t written into me. I see as much like The Penal Colony, by Kafka where they are written upon me with a pen of steel as I rotate, only I never die. I waited, and waited, but a hero never came.
Today was a day of fear, lots of different fears: fears of the future, fear of being put in a home, fear of living on the street, fear of leaving Linda hurt and alone, fear of leaving Linda with horrific debt. The shining path? Death. I don’t fear Booth Gardner telling me I am going to die, I don’t fear being told I am going to get better, or that I can be better. So what that I won’t walk? If they can keep me awake with energy 15 hours a day I WILL get at least two jobs, I will write enough books to make the bookcases bow in weight. I have the demons of myself to exorcise, the feelings of failure, the feelings I made Linda suffer, and my parents, or father to whom I am a ‘disappointment’, my grandparents, my father’s father who never acknowledged I lived. I have demons in me and I am used to their weight on my back.

What I fear is being told, that they can ‘stabilize me’, that whether they understand the damage or not, this is how I will live, for at least three years more, just like this. We have no savings, what money we have to go to Booth Gardner we got from YOU – our readers. I am on oxygen. Linda has to get up twice a night to get me pills to stop me from screaming in pain. I am a cost of at least $15-20 a day. This is what I fear, that Linda will continue to be harassed as she was because I am disabled, because I am her partner and I am unable to defend myself. That she will be abused verbally and emotionally. That she will bear the weight and responsibility of a job and a dependant that WILL NOT DIE. But also who will not get better. That is my greatest fear right now.

For the rest, well, I have to sleep twice a day; so I have nightmares twice a day. And I am degenerating mentally. I also am disassociating. I started to HELP, to create the ‘counselor Beth’ for Linda, or the ‘Brainstorming Beth’ for Linda but once you open the box, then out comes the ‘Scared child Beth.’ I don’t know if it is part of the brain degeneration or part of my sexual abuse or just part of this hell situation but it happens. I just don’t understand. I am afraid. It is hell, for me and for those around me.

That is what I think many people go through or are going through. I don’t know. The problem is that Linda and I have both been battered and abused so much that we both have ‘regression days.’Which leaves the question, “Where is the adult to check why Beth’s hands are blue?”

My frustration: that after decades I finally conquered one of my devils. No, I was not at peace. I haven’t figured that one out yet, but I did WANT to live instead of want to die. I was able to look and talk about my past without out being consumed by it. I had a future. The clouds had parted and I was free. I wanted to live. For a couple of years, even the first year of the disease, I still had that feeling. I can't remember much of this last year. But now, I want to die; to free everyone from this horrible drama.

I want Linda to be able to move on. I want my job to be over, I have been staked, I have suffered, now let me die. Let me serve this last blessing. I’m not supposed to say that. Probably because it is the truth. I went to visit my grandmother and I saw myself in a few months, if I keep living. She was nice, but she was using all her energy, all her intelligence just to keep up with what or who was there, even if she didn’t know them. Was she scared, not then, but at night, I’ll bet. I am scared at night. I used to love the night, watching the night and moon pass over the world (I didn’t have bunnies to share snacks with), but now, I fear the night, I fear it as it is when I grow tired. I grow afraid, I have to sleep (have nightmares), I have to have a tomorrow (meetings, schedules: things I don’t understand where people will not allow me dignity), most vets I know treat their patients with more love, patience and caring than medical practitioners, or care givers. I fear them.

I know that it is likely that I will be afraid for every day for the rest of my life, however that long it is. I know that Linda, for many of those days, will have a tinge of fear, unless she builds her wall strong enough, locking me out. I don’t think she WANTS to do that. But I understand if she has to.

I try to find the minutes between the fear, the moments where I am surrounded but I have forgotten, or I can keep trying to grow or move forward. I sold a DVD today, that gave me a few minutes. I haven’t stopped fighting, I also haven’t stopped the job appointed me. Yes, maybe it is easier to fear when you are in pain, or when you have been abandoned by so many, when you have pain medication bottles with no refills, no GP, no where to go. But there are times between that fear. I am not paralyzed. I managed to write about it….in the end.

Flying, and what is possible.

If you only look at my dying body, you will never get to see ME.What is possible until I SAY it is possible? Today we have a lesson in flight, whimsy and spring. I think we all need a little spring in our lives right now. But unlike Peter Pan or Tinkerbell, you don’t have to have happy thoughts, you can be as sarcastic as you like. I encourage it; because flying takes ATTITUDE, or was that ‘altitude?’ I always get the two mixed up. No, I am pretty sure it was attitude. So grab your rock chick attitude and get geared up for flight.The guitar says: “It’s better to be wrong alive than dead right.” That’s sort of terminal people humor. Which is the first lesson in flying: one I happen to excel at, falling.
If you can’t fall, then you can’t fly, and wow, can I fall. Falling is a bit of an art; you want it to be entertaining for the spectators but not actually permanently damage you. But the point is, you can’t fly, if you aren’t willing to fall. Now staying here, on the ground, in the snow with everyone else is fine. If that is what you are made for. But there are some of us who have wings burned into us. They keep cutting them off, but somehow the wings keep coming back. So is everyone ready?
What is flying really? Well flight, with all the physics removed is being where only imagination can put you, one part of you in reality (the air) and the other part of you in desire, in wish, in imagination, in whatever and where ever you want to be, if you are willing to pay. Because what you dream, you can do. Or you can fall a bunch of times trying. I said I would rather try for the impossible and fall down for the last time further than anyone thought possible than not try at all. That is how I lived, that is how I will die (a bit of slave to fashion, I went to the doctor’s yesterday in my tank top with bats on it, and slim leg jeans – I was smoking hot – if you got to be freezing, since it snowed, then you might as well look hot, right?) and that (trying!) is how I will be spending the next little while (because here is the secret, I’m not dead yet, and I’m not dying! Well, yes my body and brain may be a little on the blink but like a TV if you just jiggle the antenna…….um, never mind). Point be that, yes, I have been down, down, emotionally crushed. And it has been a long winter, hasn’t it? It has for me, so I for one am OUT OF HERE. Let’s go ahead; you know ‘dreams’, ‘planning’, ‘intention’, ‘wild whimsy’? Let’s GO!
Okay, now was that so hard? Well actually it is, because we spend so much time stuck in there here and now with the government and the council and the other people bombarding us with things to keep us focused only on the problems: They convince us only on what can’t be done, only on barely keeping up that we are so scared that if we lift our foot off the ground, we will be lost. So you got small wings, don’t worry...they grow with time, the point is to lift off, right? For you to leave, at least for the 5-15 minutes you are here, that crap behind, because spring is coming. Spring is coming to thaw winter and I have to tell you she is a bit of a babe.
Now, first things first, I should say that I don’t just go off on lots of opium in case you are wondering in some sort of Kubla Kahn dream. No, I am working toward an actual reality and to do that I took care of myself, I had hard days, like yesterday but I got my sleep, my REST, I watched anime and ate good wholesome things, like…um…cookies.
The first thing is that people forget, they forget what CAN be. I don’t know why, because I forget everything every 48 hours and yet, I still can see what can’t be seen, and yet others don’t. They can only see hot chocolate and apple cider (not that I don’t like that) but can you see and remember THIS:
Yeah, now we are in the mood. Spring comes in bouncing and flouncing around. There are flowers peeping up where I live and I guess it won’t be long before the whole area is shouting, “Look at me, I’m alive!” And I said, “You do this EVERY year, do you have to make such a big deal about it!” But then, a truly wonderful thing happens, and I think we all know what I am talking about. Yes, the winter coats disappear and finally crop tops and all sorts of curves and cleavage appear!Err, I must have meant to say something about gardens but got lost in the Sun (whew, now I am hot looking at that picture!) Flowers.

Anyway, I have decided, as I tend to do, that I will have a bikini this year. Linda says, “But you have a great one piece!” And then after looking at my wasted form went, “But you have the figure needed for one!” I am not sure that was overwhelming support but if it works for anime girls it will work for ME. The problem is I need someone to bring me one of the super support ones from Japan so it LOOKS like I have DD or E cups when I have something slightly further towards the front of the alphabet.

The other thing I am learning besides the fact after careful watching of MANY anime shows, that a girl in a bikini can a) get away with just about anything, b) drag off all the girls to ‘talk’ and make the guys all frustrated and c) have more fun, LOTS more fun. The Bikini girls are always having fun, and I think the more accessories you have the more fun you get (I am not sure of the formula, but I am willing to keep trying!).

And then AFTER you have all the fun, I get to have the NAP with the other bikini girls, which I want to point out is MEDICINAL. I am not sure why it is illegal in six states, but then two of those have dances were 10 year olds promise their sexuality to their father in a wedding veil (Chastity Dances) so I am not sure they have a lot of FUN in those states.

Oh, and if you have a catgirl with you, try to make sure you are on the other side of the bed, as cat girls have some unusual habits, like purring in sleep, and stretching a lot and tail twitching in their sleep. Also when they want to wake you up they sit on your face, which can be nice for the first second or two.

You may have realized that you have been sucked into a blog about nothing at all, just a bit of whimsy and pictures to brighten what seems to be a hard week for a lot of people. And you are right. And a little bit wrong. Because I will fly, I will go to Sakura-con, I have put things on ebay and sold them, I am taking action and deliberate inaction (they call it ‘resting’?) because who knows what is possible until you try. And who knows what to try unless you dream. I am tired of dying, and I think I haven’t been doing enough dreaming about what can BE recently.

See, if you know that something can BE, like for instance you WILL get a shot of me in a bikini because I WILL buy one. Then I will work toward that, and while I work hard toward that strange men will send me very wrinkled dollars in the mail with the message scrawled: ‘get bikini, many pictures!’ – So I guess another bikini wax too - oh FUN! In similar news (similar how exactly?), I did get again this week another offer for sex, written in email, not not cyber sex but like, "come to me and have sex, or let me come to you!". When the one from Africa asked me, “Why you be lesbian, why not fly here to have sex with me?” I was sort of not sure what to do (since they person was pretty sure I wouldn't be a lesbian after sex with them). However, when the email came this week from a woman saying she had read my blog and that I looked to be the good, GOD-FEARING and upright husband for her, I was a little confused and said to Linda, “I REALLY have to put more pictures of myself on the blog.”

So sort of a message. I am getting out of the apartment this weekend, I am hanging out (next to the daffodils which are just coming up), and maybe going by the sea side to take a look at the seagulls and the crazy people surfing, and flying kites. I am going to think more about what I CAN do, than what I am leaving or losing, because that is a bore (an painful bore called grief, but still I want a vacation from grief).

And I suggest you do the same, I know that where I am, I have flowers and you have four feet of snow. But you can’t find a flower to smell and think of what it will be like, and what you want to do, and how the taste of fresh strawberries and farmer’s market peas will be like? Give it a try?
Because like me, spring is coming, flowers and all, and I know that winter is still pressing down on us, but for the last couple minutes, you flew. Yes, you thought of bikinis and watermelon and spring and if that is possible, and if I am going to get a bikini and go to Sakura-con (Maybe not at the same time!) what isn't? So those are MY dreams, my ‘possible’ where are YOURS?