The day started out innocently enough. It was Moriah's first day of her second session of summer school. We were in the hub of the morning time bustle: eating breakfast, making lunch, putting water out for the dog, etc. Today is trash day in our neighborhood and I knew there were some things in the fridge that needed to go so in the midst of the bustling, I ran to the curb to throw out a handful of garbage.
Mark has been warning me. He told me just the day before that there was something beyond raunchy going on in our garbage can and that the problem needed addressing. I was like, "ya, uh huh, you take care of that" as I went about business as usual. And then, low and behold, I was the eyewitness to the most disgusting garbage scene this family has ever witnessed or experienced. Moriah had followed me out as well. As soon as I opened the top of the green can, the smell socked me clear in the nose. It was almost a knock out. And then, oh gawd, there were maggots crawling all over the inside of the can. I had just enough time to get a whiff and a glimpse before I yelled at Moriah, "RUN!" Throwing the lid back on the can, I ran with her back to the porch while she repeated, "why Mommy? Why? Why? Why?" How do you explain maggots to a child? Gross, I said, it's so gross.
This problem definitely needed remedying. There are a few technical issues with how we do garbage. For years we've had these dinky little cans in our house under the sinks of every sinkable room. We take garbage out atleast once a day, if not three times. We have had to do this because Henry, being the sneaky bastard that he is, will knock down a larger trash can and rip open the contents like a great big fantastic birthday present. Several times we came home to a kitchen full of garbage. Instead of getting rid of the dog, we got rid of the trash cans and made a habit of daily running out to the big garbage. The problem with this is that we don't use real garbage bags and so food and whathaveyou's fall out of the dinky plastic grocery bag and create this fantastic mezcla of stinky savory decomposition in the big garbage can. That..and, well, gross as it is, we have doggy doo and kitty poo in there too.
This blog is actually going to be useful if you read it. Most of my blogs are completely useless, self-indulgent pieces of my life that offer you little to nothing of substance. But here, I'm actually giving you the low down on garbage. So, my very smart neighbor told me first what to do with the doo and the poo. She doesn't throw it away and told us you're not supposed to throw it away. Instead, she digs little holes around the border of her garden and fills them with the D&P, covers it with dirt and digs a new hole the next day. Eliminates smell, makes for a great nourishing soil. Win Win All Around. Rad.
Second thing is that we need a real garbage can. Something big and hefty that can't be pushed over with actual trash can liners that can be cinched and sealed and thrown away. No more garbage soup marinating for the whole week. I am so excited, I can hardly stand it.
Anyway, after dropping off Moriah, I had a few things on my to do list. Go to a cafe and sit for at least an hour. Do nothing. Try to write. Try not to hate myself for having nothing to write about. Sit a while longer. Go grocery shopping. Go to Bed Bath and Beyond and pick up a garbage can.
The woman working behind the counter at the cafe was aboutish my age-ish with a daughter who is almost three. She was chatty and besides there was hardly anyone there so she had nothing else to do. We chatted. Somehow we found ourselves on the subject of allergies. This came, of course, after we shared horror stories of getting slapped in the face by our children, the first time we actually gave them a spanking, how it would be nice to have doting grandparents around who would take them for a weekend. I was about to ask her if she would be my New Best Friend Forever (atleast for now) when we got on the subject of allergies and such. I told her that my asthma was kicking my ass, generally getting the upper hand of my days, robbing me of a substantial amount of energy and that I wanted to find homeopathic remedies to help. She said, "Oh! We have books on that." It was a cafe within a bookstore, of course.
Off we went perusing, me and my New BFF (for now) to find this book. We didn't find it but while we were venturing into the landscape of literature, she had to share this one book with me that she just loved and perhaps I might like it. "It's just so pretty and it has so much great stuff in it about healing yourself naturally. They've come out with a new edition, but it's not nearly as pretty as the old one..and look here we have a few copies." I thumbed through it and sure enough, it was a keeper. Books are definitely my weakness. I can wear old crappy clothes for ages, but pass up a good book..nearly impossible.
The book is called "You Can Heal Your Life" by Louise L. Hay. My favorite part of the book is a list of ailments followed with a "probable cause" followed with a "new thought pattern" to help rid you of the ailment. I've seen something like this before while wandering around Boulder, Colorado when I was "soul searching." I remembered finding a lot of truth to it then as I do now. I immediately looked up "asthma" and found the probable cause to be "Smother love. Inability to breathe for one's self. Feeling stifled. Suppressed."
If you knew me well, you'd know that making a decision to get pregnant again was really difficult for me. I had this feeling that there would never be enough time for me to get around to pursuing my own dreams. That instead, my life would be one continual string of taking care of people (sometimes not very well but still trying) and that in the end, there would be nothing left for me. Having another child felt like something being taken away from me rather than the gorgeous gift of life that it is. When I found out I was pregnant, I really felt freaked out. And recently, when talking to Mark and a few friends I told them, "what's the point of finding a writing group when I'm just going to have a baby in a few months and there will be no time or energy for anything other than raising the baby anyway." This kind of thinking has otherwise been referred to as "stinkin thinkin." In Hay's introduction to the "list" she says to look at the probable cause and decide if it could have any truth for you. I would say that in my case, it does. Therefore, my new thought pattern or mantra is, "It is safe now for me to take charge of my own life. I choose to be free." And no, this doesn't mean I'm moving to Mexico to hang out at cafe's and write bad poetry. I see it more as a choice to be free of any preconceptions of what it means to be a Mother, how that role "should" look for me compared to how it looks for others. I'm free to be exactly who I am, however messy that may appear to someone else.
I went on to look up all kinds of ailments that I've experienced the past few years, especially the little annoying ones that won't go away. Each time I found so much truth to the "probable cause". The more I looked at the book, the more I recognized the author's name and art work. I went to my bedside table and grabbed these "power cards" that (sure enough) were created by Louise B. Hays. I purchased them about five years ago. Each card is a positive affirmation - an absolutely lovely positive affirmation. If only I'd been reading them all this time...well, sigh. Anyway..
I "should be" finishing up Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" but I can't really get into it. His curt prose does nothing for me. It makes me think he became so famous just because he had a cool name and hung out with all the right folks out there in Paris. So instead, I'm now devouring my new very attractive book recommended to me by my new BFFFN.
Also, despite the fact that we have two old, coughing cars, no dining room table, and still mostly bare walls, we have the best darn trash can your money can buy. It's like the rolls royce of garbage cans. Buh bye Maggots. Hello happy new mantras.
