California Half Ironman Race Report



Photo courtesy One Multisport


I was out for redemption this year. I had done this race before in 2009 and I knew how tough it could be. The 1.2 mile Pacific ocean swim in Oceanside Harbor had resulted in hypothermia for me. I came out of the water miserably cold, and was promptly whisked into the medical tent. I couldn’t warm up quickly and it added over thirty minutes to my race. Even if my time sucked, if I avoided the medical tent, it would be a win.

I never know what a race experience is going to be. Sometimes it is a body crushing sufferfest where the physical demands are so great that I can barely finish the race. Most of the time a race is fun test of my physical limits. Once in a while a race experience is extraordinary.

I didn’t sleep much because I dreaded the swim. As a slow swimmer, I always fear the swim a little, but a bad race experience such as hypothermia makes the second time psychologically harder. I was happy to find out when I got up at the god awful hour of 3:45 a.m. that it was fairly warm outside.

The race is so large, that people go off in many waves. I was in wave fourteen. People line up in their waves on the pier and can wait up to an hour to get in the water. I was reminded of a marathon chute where people line up like a herd cattle going to the slaughter. No warm up in the water is allowed. A racer jumps in the water and only has a few minutes to get to the start line.

Cold water makes me tired. I got into the water, which was bearable, but not really comfortable. I had a neoprene hood with another cap, swim booties and a two- piece wetsuit. The water was fairly smooth, but I had to rest a lot until I got into the last two thirds of the swim. The last part of the swim funnels into the harbor too many swimmer in too little space. I figured that it was their problem if I was in their way and I wasn’t bothered by the crowd that bumped into me. I think I got a draft off of all the people passing me. Total time was 56 minutes, which was 2.5 minutes faster than 2009.

Out of the water. I was dazed and uncoordinated, but not too cold.. The warmer air made a huge difference in how well I tolerated the chilly water. Due to the brain fog, transition took much too long, but it was better than being in a medical tent for thirty-eight minutes. I struggled to get my booties and wetsuit off; put on a vest, shoes, helmet and arm warmers. Then the swim gear had to be packed up and put in a bag to be transported to the finish area. Plus, the porta potty was a necessary stop.

California 70.3 has a beautiful bike route through Camp Pendleton, which is mostly undeveloped and looks like a nature preserve. The scenery was the typical California rolling grassy landscape dotted with yellow, orange and purple wildflowers. Not many events have bike routes that go through “tank crossings”. For good measure, some steep hills are thrown in.

The bike was much harder than I had remembered. I recalled the two steep hills and riding by the beach, but not all the rollers. I felt good until mile twenty. My bike computer was on kilometers because I had changed the battery. It was a good mental exercise in a way, trying to figure the speed. More terrain like this around Phoenix to train on would have been nice. Even at my slow pace, I passed a fair number of people, including the hapless people that walked their bikes up the steep parts. Even I could get up the damn hills on a bike.

Past all the climbs, I thought the flat road would be easy. Then a head wind picked up, coming from the west–just a little more pain to endure. The fifty-six mile bike split was a minute faster than 2009.

At the start of the run. I said something rude to a rider in my way who had finished and was wheeling out his bike out of transition. To be polite would have required too much energy. I was utterly exhausted, depressed. I mentally berated myself for being such an inadequate athlete. Thirteen miles seemed impossible to run.

I had planned to eat a Powerbar gel and a salt tablet every hour, but I passed on the gels. Maybe because they taste like spit. In desperation, I tried a Gu, Bonk Breakers and Coke. The Coke was magic and the run was miraculously resurrected. I suddenly felt human again and could run faster. The black hole receded and I continued to use Coke at almost every aid station. I wished for more salt tablets. I had six the whole race and was still craving salt on the run. I fantasized about pretzels.

The run was two laps along the beach, pier and streets of Oceanside with some short, steep inclines. A crowd watched and cheered the runners. I passed people I knew and it helped to see friendly faces.

No one was going to get in my way, even the volunteer that I shoved gently aside when I had the finish line in sight. The run is the heart of a triathlon and the most difficult to pull off well. In long course races, I am lucky to slog through it with tired legs because the bike sucks out all the energy out the muscles. To have some control over the fatigue felt powerful. I was tired and hot, even with the ocean breeze, but happy to run a little faster. I wanted this pain to be over with. I glared at anyone even thinking about crossing my path. The second lap was five and a half minutes faster than the first lap. Total time was 7:36.

The idea that I could do better than merely survive amazed me. A psychological barrier had fallen and now other feats might be possible, like a faster half ironman or ironman run. I didn’t care that some people would consider the 2:34 time to be mediocre. It was the best I had ever done in a half ironman. The last mile was the fastest, a difficult feat. To climb out of a dark physical and mental place and turn around a bad run felt incredible. That’s what I like about racing--every once in a while I exceed what I thought was possible. 

Courtesty One Multisort. Ramp we had to run up
and down twice

Rejection Hurts



Earlier Version of Petroglyphs

 Rejection is a tough thing to for me to handle. My inner child pouts and wants to cry. A child is dependent upon an adult for survival and disapproval is devastating for a child. An adult doesn’t need approval to survive, but we all seek it anyway. Ingrained mental habits are difficult to overcome. I want to be emotionally mature, but I just go back to that place where my self esteem depends upon others’ approval.

I recently submitted four paintings to two separate art exhibits. All of them got rejected. I had no illusions that they were masterpieces or even very good, but I thought they had some redeeming qualities of color, composition and subject matter. One painting in particular I had struggled with. It’s an abstract with petroglyphs as inspiration, since patterns and marks attract me. The painting was quite right and it drove me crazy. I had previously submitted it and I used the judges’ comments to change it and it seemed decent to me. Other people told me they liked it. It was rejected two more times anyway.
                                                                                       
The creative process can be painful, whether it is painting, writing, or music. At times, I know I need to do something to make a piece better, but I don’t know what. Other times an unexpected idea comes unbidden out of my mind and the results are interesting. A color suddenly pops when placed next to another. A story now has an interesting animal that talks. Imagination is a fascinating process.



REJECT X3

 Other times, nothing comes to mind and I hate what I have done. I want to do something else because it demands too much mental exertion. If it is a painting, I stand back, stare at it and hope it tells me what to do.


Do you need difference colors? Silence. Different lines? It just stares back at me and says nothing.

Universal guidelines help in painting. Warm and dark colors come forward, cool and pale colors recede, for example, but they don’t always tell me what to do if a painting doesn’t look right; don’t tell what to put in a certain space to create harmony. An inner voice will tell me that the piece is ugly and whatever I do won’t save it.

Putting a creation out in the world is a stressful thing. If no one sees it but you, it doesn’t matter if it has flaws. Once other people see it, your work and therefore you are exposed to criticism, some helpful, some not. I want to improve what I have done and sometimes another viewpoint is needed. The risk is that it will be judged negatively. It’s nice to have the work validated, but that doesn’t always happen. The voice inside me says it doesn’t matter, but it does. The piece isn’t you, but it feels like it. If it sucks, you do.

Braving criticism takes a thick skin and detachment. Most of the time it’s not a bad process for me, even though it un-nerving to be vulnerable. To be judged is tougher when I can’t confront the person. To know that some aspects of my work pleased them softens the blow. Impersonal rejection is harsh. However benign their intention was and how immature my feelings are, it hurts.

I paint for myself, not other people, so if they don’t like my work, I will continue to do it anyway. My inner child will just have to shut up and go sulk.



Valentine's Day

It’s here again.

A sea of pink and red ugly stuffed bears and stale candy
greets me in the drugstore aisle.
Sappy, dripping, honeyed greeting cards with red hearts.
Be mine! I love you! XOXOXO!

The vile presence of Cupid appears.

“Pay homage to me. Worship me.
Bring me flowers, candy, diamonds, stuffed animals, cards!
Or I shoot you!”

Bully.

Cupid flits around, stuffing drugstore candy into chubby cheeks.

I regard with contempt the fat, leering, winged vermin.
Be gone you flying fiend!

He smiles vacantly.

Sleepy eyes.

“Love me for I am superior to you.
You are nothing.”

I hurl a nearby handy object at him.

A box of condoms smacks his face.

He rubs his reddened cheek; swoops to pick up the box.
“Ribbed for her pleasure. What does this mean?”
He takes one out of the box and opens the wrapper. “A balloon?”

It dangles.

Stupid Cupid. I throw a box of candy at him.

He dodges it.

“Love me!” he commands. He drops the condom.

I heave flowers. Red rose petals explode on his face;
shower the floor like blood droplets. I pick up the condom.

“Come here Cupid.”

He approaches cautiously . I lunge.

I grab a tiny foot. I throw him to the ground.

Wrap the condom tightly around his neck.

He thrashes,
cherub cheeks turn blue;
then he grows still.

Die Valentine’s Day!

“Clean up, aisle eight,” I hear as I walk away.

What I Hate

        In the depth of post holiday crankiness I thought  about what petty annoyances I really dislike in life. I have been reading Joan Rivers’ I HATE EVERYONE...STARTING WITH MYSELF.  This book is far more outrageous than I would write. For example,  “I hate it when people introduce you to someone and use the word ‘lover’.  What lover means is I ingest this person’s bodily fluids’” . This statement is way cruder than I would use, but I get her point. I would think about emulating this style, but I don’t have the nerve to be that offensive.

       Minor irritations to me are usually meaningless in themselves, but when added to all the other ones, they are a teeth gnashing bad mood. I need to complain about stupid stuff and point out the idiocy of it. My ex would call this whining. Whining is defined as “to complain in a tiresome or childish way” I call it self-expression. He never understood the benefits of venting. When I complain, I feel better. When I disemboweled Cupid in a poem it was cathartic.

What makes me cranky lately is driving. I HATE DRIVING. It bores and annoys me. Everyone is in my way. Either someone is driving really slow and I can’t change lanes or a truck is tailgating. If the person weaves all over the road in a vehicle, they are either drunk or talking on a cell phone. The result is the same.-bad driving that endangers everyone on the road.

Bad driving is especially un-nerving when I ride my bike. I really don’t want to die this way. I expect drivers to be idiots, but I can’t anticipate everything. I get cut off, cursed at and almost run down. This destroys my piece of mind. I long to ride in quiet streets without breathing in car exhaust and facing the constant fear of bodily injury. Cyclists ride in large groups to fend off the car menace. A distracted driver on can’t hit everyone.

I hate people with better cars than me. I have a 2001 Toyota Corolla with 112,000 miles on it. A nice shiny new silver car with less than 100,000 miles on it would be nice, but vast sums of my savings are going to pay my daughter’s college tuition. I always have the thought in the back of my mind that I am going to break down in some bad part of town late at night. The car would look better if I actually cleaned it once in a while, but I have better things to do-like anything else.

I hate people with better lives than me. A steady income, a great job, lots of friends, a loving spouse. At the very least they could shut up about it. This is endemic on Facebook. I could be generous and congratulate a person  on their good fortune, but instead, I will be petty, ungrateful for what I have and ignore it. I already feel inadequate enough.

I hate people who brag all the time. This is another Facebook foible. To share one’s accomplishments is okay, but to constantly harp on their ivy league degree, superior children and outstanding athletic achievements is obnoxious.  I don’t need to be reminded how unworthy I am to be in the presence of such greatness. I have to resist my urge to say something snarky. I don’t always succeed.

I hate people who have to the constant need to foist their political views on me. I won’t change my mind on an issue with one citation from a dubious internet source with an agenda. I am tired of the debates on gun control, gay marriage, abortion, Obamacare, entitlements and prayer in school. Are the aliens causing all the hostile debates?  Is an irrationality virus sweeping the country?

I hate people who are happy all the time or who claim to be happy all the time. What’s the matter with them? Life isn’t always THAT great. Get real. I could be more positive, but it is too much work to resist my negative nature.

I would probably be in a better mood if I didn’t read Facebook,  ride my bike, talk to anyone or drive. But then I would be bored and complain anyway. Maybe I will just think up ways to inflict pain on Cupid. Valentine’s Day is soon.

THE CHRISTMAS BEAST

In October it slithers in early.
I am appalled to see in stores the garlanded horror of
Santas that menace
the gentler, less scary skeletal Halloween.

In November the monster is unleashed.House-eating lights blaze and twinkle.
Quickly they appear and then disappear slowly, sometimes not at all.
Vacantly leer the grinning blow up snowmen, who spring up,
then mysteriously collapse in
daylight, like slaughtered zombie sub-humans;
only to arise again to haunt the evening.

Pine trees are killed, put up in houses,
decorated, then
 tossed in the trash afterwards. 

 Shiny ornaments and lights distract from

 tree death or plastic fakery.

 I drag my tree out from its dirty garage home  and resurrect it.

Unenthusiastically I dig out the lights and decorations to put on it.

I have been conditioned to do this.

Newspapers, radio, television exhort the willing masses to buy, buy, buy,
jewelry, perfume, cars, mattresses, clothes, phones, IPads, IPods, computers, games, toys, DVD’s, TV’s...
You are not loved unless you give or receive these items.
I want to live on a deserted island until January.

This folly is accompanied by music of the worst kind-
water boarding sappy tunes and cheesy lyrics that play
over and over; often degraded to hawk
the jewelry, perfume, cars, mattresses, clothes, phones, IPads, IPods, computers, games, toys, DVD’s, TV’s...
This torture wears the prey down for easier consumption.
I want to scream for it to stop.

December is a mega-tsunami of holiday hell.

Victims are fattened on booze, cookies, candy and fruitcake.

They voluntarily gather with their friends
and only reluctantly with their families.

The beast is hungry.

Finally, it feeds, a Dionysian orgy of excess.
It swallows everything in its path
leaving a litter
of crumpled wrapping paper,
tattered ribbon and credit card bills.
I feel the void of emptiness it leaves.
It slithers off
until next Halloween.

Soma Half Iron Race Report

I hesitated to sign up for the Soma half ironman. A relatively flat race in October at Tempe, Arizona, should be “easy”, but it is not. I go back a long way with this race, starting with a sprint version in 2003. I had done Soma as my first half iron in 2004. In those days, they had the sense not to hold it before the last weekend in October. A week makes a big difference in the Phoenix area, the difference between mildly warm and hot as hell. I am slow and always end up running in mid-afternoon. A half marathon in temperatures of high eighties is not optimal for a run, but is optimal for heat exhaustion.


I got to Tempe in the usual dark of the night to get my stuff organized, pump up my bike tires, get body marked and stand in a long line for the porta potty. I was in a daze because I am not a morning person. Waking up at 3:45 doesn’t help. I always wonder how I am ever going to have the energy to race, but it always happens. People milled around to get ready. Since it is a local race, I chatted with people that I knew. I tried not to think about how long the day would be.

We lined up to jump in the warm seventy-four degree water. The rising sun pinked up the Mill Avenue bridge, the buildings lining the banks of Tempe Town Lake and the mountains. My wave, which was the last one, bobbed around in the water waiting for the start. I stayed to the back.

We started off, and swam into the sun. I waited for people to go off, because I couldn’t stay with them. People would kick me if I was in the way. It was hard to sight off the buoys in the glare of the light. I saw moving arms and splashing arcs of reflected water ahead of me.

I swam onward at a steady pace, not hating it, but not enjoying it. It was just work. I was hot in my wetsuit. After a while, a few souls were still in the water, but most had left. A kayaker paddling along side annoyed me. They were supposed to save us if we were drowning, but I didn’t need rescuing and I wanted to be left alone.

Finally, I reached the end. Fifty-nine minutes. That was slower than I wanted. Volunteers stripped my wetsuit off and I ran to my bike.

I started to ride and found out that my bike computer wasn’t working, so I had no idea how fast I was going. I wanted to be conservative anyway, because fifty-six miles is a long way to ride hard in the heat. It felt cool right now, but that wouldn’t last.

The bike course was still crowded with people on their second and third laps. I took note of where I was going because by the third lap, I would probably be alone. I didn’t want to have the disconcerting feeling of being unsure where I was going when no one was around to follow.

I wanted to have a personal best time on the bike section, but not to overdo it. I stopped to use the porta potty and to fix my bike computer. The sun was more intense by now.

I noticed half way through that I wasn’t feeling well; the nasty feeling I got on the edge of heat exhaustion. I thought to myself, this isn’t good. I poured water on myself to keep cool, but it would evaporate in ten minutes. I was tired and my legs and feet hurt.

By the third lap, the course was empty, with a few souls bravely plodding along. I didn’t like riding up an empty freeway ramp by myself. Creepy. I was relieved to see anyone. The tedium was occasionally broken by vehicles invading the bike course. I saw a semi crossing ahead of me, blowing through an intersection and somehow avoiding the orange cones. My pace was about what I wanted to do-sixteen miles per hour. I finished in about three and a half hours, a P.R..

The real fun is the two lap run. Now it was eighty-eight degrees. One year, I did the run in ninety plus degrees. My heart rate had soared, I had been dizzy and my fingers had tingled. I had to walk the second lap and the run took almost four hours. I had desperately wished at the time that someone would have pulled me off the course. I wanted to avoid that horror.

I accepted the mediocrity of running the first lap slow. This wasn’t good for my ego, but it was survival and I might as well not feel bad about it. I would rather run both laps, then walk one. I poured water on myself at every aid station and stuffed ice down my bra. It helped keep me going, but I was still fried. The walking dead accompanied me. Negativity entered my brain. I hated the people who had already finished. I thought how this race was dead to me and I would never do it again. People better not get in my way. I was fighting the heat, fatigue, pain and mental misery. I wondered who was on their last lap. Probably everyone but me. I kept running, but slower than I wanted to.

In the midst of my dark mood, I met up with a friend. We talked as we ran and I didn’t think as much how miserable I was. I could run faster with someone to pace me. The temperature rose to ninety degrees. It was me versus the heat and I was winning. The miles went by. The end was near.


Fellow sufferers, um
 racers. Courtesy Camelback Coaching

We ran together under the finish line in seven hours, seventeen minutes total time. I usually finish half irons alone with no one to cheer me at the end, so this was a bonus. This was my fastest overall and 2:37" run time ever in a half ironman. The race was harder and felt much worse than I thought it would. I had had a faint hope that I would feel great doing this distance. Reality beat me down, but not the heat. Some challenges make me pay dearly to overcome them.

MY HOUSE DIVORCE

It used to be a nice house. It was clean, sunny and roomy. It had a big back yard that I could plant lots of trees and shrubs. The grass was green and the fences weren’t crumbling. The citrus trees in our yard had oranges and grapefruit in the winter. I grew vegetables and flowers.


My daughter loved the pool , which my husband took care of. I thought I would never move, outgrow it or have to care for it entirely myself.

My daughter took her first steps in this house. Marks on the garage wall show her growth. Her various playmates passed through with birthday parties, sleep-overs, speech practices and later anime conventions. Her friends would come over, wreck things and leave. A population of Barbies, then Neopets took over her room. Her drawings were strewn everywhere. Life permeated the walls and even juice when Melissa had a fit and flung her cup. Stains on the carpet evidenced one of her art projects.



Growth Hashmarks on the Garage Wall

 But the house wasn’t that easy to keep clean and I am a lazy housekeeper. It had 2,400 square feet of floor to get dirty. Our cat shed fur and occasionally puked on the rug. As he got older he added urine to the mix. Pet birds contributed seeds, poop and feathers in amounts way beyond their size. They weren’t happy confined in their cages, so they had a whole room to fly around and pollute. Cleaning their cages and her room was not a priority with my daughter.


Then the house relationship died one day. I sat at the dining room table with my husband when he told me the relationship wasn’t working anymore. My world caved in and things were never the same. I got profoundly depressed. I was left with all his junk and I had to purge it.

His photos came down, the marriage certificate was shredded, but I still had his ugly office furniture and law books. Looking at this stuff was a slap in the face. The detritus of thirty-two years of marriage weighed me. My love affair with the house was over.

I loved growing things, but weeding, trimming bushes and sawing limbs was a chore. I planted native plants thinking that they wouldn’t need a lot a water, but I was wrong. The sprinkler system didn’t cover most of what I had planted so I had to drag a soaker hose around the yard and water something almost every day in the summer. When my husband left, I didn’t want to mow grass and pay for the water, so I let the grass die. This resulted in bushes in the lawn dying and dropping their leaves in the pool. The yard looked sad. It reflected on my failure to maintain it and in my life in general.

The pool was difficult to keep up. The water had to be tested for acidity and chlorine content. The sand filter clogged up and cleaning it was a pain. The pool was a leaf magnet. The skimmer never seemed to work well. Water would have to be added every other day in the summer. It wasn’t so bad when my husband was around to take care of it, but I had no idea what to do when he left.

When my husband divorced me, my thought was to sell the house. My daughter didn’t want to live anywhere else, so I held off putting it on the market. At the time it had equity. Then the market crashed and it lost half of its inflated value. I owed more than what it was worth. I didn’t know what to do.

I still wanted sell the house, so I slowly got rid of stuff, especially if it was my ex’s. I felt a small triumph when something was gone.

I bided my time and cursed the pool. The damn machinery kept breaking down and turning the water green with algae. I had to sink money into something that I hated. The air conditioning broke down in June and I had to replace it. I wanted out.

The market continued to plunge. Every year the “experts” said the market would improve and it didn’t. I looked at options including defaulting on the mortgage. I felt trapped.

My daughter left for college. The house was even emptier. It felt weird to be totally alone for long periods of time. Sometimes I didn’t have any human contact for days. The only sound in the house would be the television or the pet birds.

I finally put the house on the market this year, a step towards my goal of moving on in my life. Selling it was tricky with it being worth less than I owed on it. I didn’t know where I was going to live, other than in the same neighborhood. I knew I didn’t want a pool. I didn’t know if the bank would even approve a short sale or if they would sue me for the difference. All kinds of legal issues accompanied a short sale.

I got lucky with a getting a buyer right away. A neighbor offered to buy it before it was officially listed. The bank approved the sale in a week. Everything happened very fast. I just had to find a place to live after nineteen years in the same place.

Looking at rental houses left me cold. What were some of these people thinking? One promised a brand new kitchen with granite counter tops, but left other areas in the house unfinished. Another had a neighbor with ten cars in the yard and a pile of tires in the back yard. One didn’t look bad except the house across the street had it stucco stripped off and a motor cycle parked in front. I had visions of motorcycle noise at three in the morning and loud parties. I didn’t feel safe there.

I finally found one I liked, but it was farther than I wanted to travel for almost everything. I had no other good choices, though. It was about 1500 square feet-less floor to clean. It looked like the other tile roofed variations on the same model, crammed together with tiny yards. I used to turn my nose up at these types of houses. Now it suited my needs, No huge yard, no pool and a garage to put my crap in. It was clean and neat and I wasn’t in charge of yard upkeep.

Still, I wondered... did I want to be in this house for a year? Can I pay the rent? Am I ever going to be comfortable in it? It came down to no time left to look for another place or no other options, so I took it.

When you live in a place a long time, little tendrils of memories worm their way into your mind. As much as I wanted out, it was still wrenching to leave. I felt like a plant being repotted that had roots being ripped from the clay surface of its container. I felt unhinged, uncomfortable, insecure and uneasy.

Since the divorce I had been getting rid of things. Now it started in earnest. I had no idea how much stuff I had until I started packing it. I had the Salvation Army take my ex’s ugly fake wood grain plastic office furniture predating the seventies. A neighbor helped haul away patio furniture, a grill and assorted other junk. It still wasn’t enough. I gave up and just packed the items I didn’t want. The weight of all the accumulation of things oppressed me. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the lawn spreader ,a wheel barrel and four bikes.

The amount of packing was enormous. I had moved before, but never by myself and never packing everything. I would wake up at night in a panic and would have to calm myself down. Anxiety ate at me. I couldn’t relax. If I got tired, I couldn’t rest because something else had to be done. My life had been taken over by moving hell. Boxes were scattered around the house, but just as much stuff was laying around loose. I had twenty paintings and no where to put them. Where does all this crap come from? It snuck in when I wasn’t looking and before long, it took over. Despair overcame me at times.

Moving day came. I was packing up until the time that the truck was nearly loaded. These guys were carrying my life out the door. Somehow they managed to knock a door knob off a door in the hallway. They couldn’t get a couch out the door of a room. It got in the door, why couldn’t it go out? I had to leave it for now. I was too tired to fight about it.

With all the going in and out, I was hot and sweaty the whole day. My body wanted to go exercise, not pack and stress out. My muscles were shaky and weak.

I drove to the new place and put my pet birds away. The movers hadn’t shown up yet. I think they had gone out to lunch or something. The house had a smaller square footage and I wasn’t sure where I was going to put everything. I found out that cramming houses close together makes for darker rooms because sunlight is blocked.

The movers came back. Everything didn’t fit. I had to put my weight machine in the garage. An old entertainment center looked too big for its space. My office furniture barely fit in the room. Boxes were everywhere. I had no cable yet, so I felt lost. No computer, no T.V. I was uncomfortable. The movers left after I paid them a large amount of money. I wondered if I was supposed to tip them.

I couldn’t find anything. I had marked the boxes with the room where they were supposed to be and what was in them, but the movers had not read some of the labels. I found my kitchen pots half a day later. So much stuff was laying around. It didn’t feel like a home. I was exhausted and couldn’t face unpacking the boxes. I got out what I really needed and ignored the rest.

The next day the cable guy came. I felt much better. At least I wasn’t disconnected from the world. The thought of organizing and reconnecting all the wires myself had worried me a great deal. A little normalcy was restored, though I still felt very unsettled.

The old house hadn’t closed yet, so it was still my responsibility. Some church ladies volunteered to help and cleaned out the debris left behind. A neighbor helped get the couch to my new place. I gradually got the stuff I had left behind. It didn’t feel finished, though. I still had to worry about the yard and the pool. The emptiness echoes inside when I was there. It’s a skeleton of what it was, the soul vanished.

The pool decided to turn green. I ran out of chemicals. I tried to back wash it and it didn’t help. I desperately wanted to be done with the frustration forever.

On one of my visits, a hummingbird reproached me with his beady little eyes and raspy call about the empty feeder. It was so unspeakably sad that I felt like crying for hours. I was surprised with the strength of my emotional reaction. It was like a dream where a subconscious feeling comes out and I wake up with the shock of it still lingering in my mind. An unbidden sense of mourning, loss and abandonment had assaulted me.

The once pretty yard looked dried up. I ran the sprinkler system, but it didn’t water every plant. I worried about the unique native plants not typically found in Phoenix suburban yards. They were my babies. I will miss them.

************************************************************

On October 9, 2012, the house officially sold. I will not to have to worry about it anymore. My plants will probably die and the hummingbirds will be unhappy, but it is out of my control. I try not to think about it and feel guilty. When I have a goal, the difficulties involved to achieve it can surpass what I ever anticipated. Even though I really wanted to sell the house, like any divorce, the emotional entanglement was difficult to sever.