A Change

Sometimes a great change can mean a big move.

I'm MOVING!

http://makeamightyocean.wordpress.com/

I thought about moving my blog in 2007 and balked. Didn't want to do all the work, and make people change links. But it seems like the right time now.

Most friends I followed have gone to private or moved on to different outlets. As well, I am working on a couple projects that I will need wordpress for and having three sites in one place is so much easier logistically. 

Onward I write, taking small words, just a drop of water and growing my ocean. The waves of my life.

summer songs

Is there another sound so indicative of summer as a mid-afternoon cicada chirp? Maybe a sprinkler or constant hum of an oscillating fan, but not quite.

I can remember the first time I heard a cicada, well maybe I should say my first memory of cicadas.

1988 in Brazos Bend St Park
It is another world to a little girl, something out of Star Wars, ancient oak trees dripping with Spanish Moss.
Be careful a gator doesn't eat you as an afternoon snack.

Leah and I were at Campfire camp. I think I was a Bluejay.
The cicadas sang their summer song in the hot still air.

I got the chicken pox during camp and missed most of it. I don't remember chicken pox at all. I'm guessing they were itchy.
I sculpted a small, clay bowl but got sick before I could glaze it. Leah finished it for me, pink and green, I was told. But a counselor painted over it in red and blue.

Still that chorus from the trees clung deep in my memory, tucked away in a file marked Summer Songs.

sorry, we are closed on mondays

I stopped writing a narrative of every weekend or birthdays in my blog because I find them tiresome in other blog's. But in my old age ;) I cannot distinguish one birthday from another, and some simply melt away. So this is for me and the public record - What I did on my 31st birthday.

Aren't weekend birthday's the best? Granted I'm not working outside the home right now, but still!

I woke up this year to my mommy texting me asking what I wanted to do. (Actually, I woke up at 630, turned off Wheel's nightlight, played with her, talked to the other kitties about what they were going to do today and sat in the sunroom with the ipad)

I thought about going to the contemporary art museum - Closed on Mondays
And then thought maybe MFAH - nope Closed on Mondays

So we drove to Columbus.
I consider long talks with my mom a gift in themselves. We drove around the little town and ate at a local joint, trying to imagine what it would be like to live there. And then we had to stop and visit my property. It is the second time I've seen it and it still "feels right."

For dinner I requested Pollo Campero tacos. Those tacos. The peruvian was extra spicy that night.
For dessert I wanted Mam's, I had a really cute instagram idea, you know the really important things in life. But alas - CLOSED ON MONDAYS

David and I drove to Ruggles in the Village and got a piece of chocolate truffle cake, and ordered a cappuccino (which turned out to be HUGE) and sat outside people watching, the truffle cake getting soft and eventually melting in the heat. We talked and sipped our coffees and laughed trying to get a birthday photo.

Do you feel older?
I think for the first time ever, I do feel older. I feel like I know myself a little more and that feels good.  I think 31 will be a grounded, happy year. Not because everything will go my way, but I be present, get out and see the world, and will be listening closely to what needs to be heard.

Three Thirty

It's the middle of the night. I don't have an interesting story. Just typing on my phone at three thirty hoping I don't die without some record of my odd death. Write a poem about me if I do. She was a brave lass....

I woke up with an itchy arm. A very itchy can't scratch enough until I have a bloody stump arm. And I try to ignore it until my mind starts to wonder and I've contracted some horrifying ailment seen only on campy medical dramadies.

So I get David to turn in the light. David. David. No not the overhead the lamp. No don't get up just turn on the light I need to see if I still have an arm. I relay the above paragraph to a still asleep David.

Might as well mention that when the light comes on I see King Rigby has negotiated a spot the length of my pillows and I have spilled over into the middle pressed against David. We are essentially sharing a twin mattresses at this point.

Think I might as well pee. In the bathroom light my arm is fairly red, probably not a flea bite or anything harmless. Maybe it is SARS or a flesh eating bacteria. Can't tell if it is swollen cause I'm so dang squishy. Why am I so squishy? Maybe my over-squishiness has something to do with my impending demise.

The great hunt for Benadryl commences. I grab a zantac for heartburn, what sorcery is this? See how fast I'm deteriorating?

I'm writing in bed. Fearing I could slip into anaphylactic shock and no one would notice. Oh of course David fell asleep and was snoring the instant after his head hit the pillow.

Check on me later.
Uhhhhh (sleep grunt)
Don't let me die.
Uhhhhh
Did you hear me? I could have been bitten by an Amazonian poisonous tree frog. David?

families

I want to take a moment to talk about family.

This weekend we drove to Flower Mound for a funeral. Grandma passed from this world June 29th. She wasn't my Grandma, but she was family.

I stood by Jeni as guests started to enter the church and offer condolences for her loss. They'd then turn to me and introduce myself, expecting to me to say I was a cousin or maybe an in-law of some kind.

"I'm Analee and I'm Navy family."

My Grammy always talks about Air Force families they still keep in contact with 40 years later and I never understood. When David and I were dating, his first deployment was so isolating. It was more than long distance. It was 9 months without a phone call, a few lines of email every 3 days saying he was safe and missed me. I was in it alone.

Moving to Washington was my first experience in a military community. We knew each other just a few days before we started helping plan weddings, drive sick kids to the emergency room in the middle of the night or spend the night in each others beds when the loneliness grew too great.

Navy family had to be best friends from back home, mom's, sisters, substitutes for husbands. You come together because there is no one else.
And you bond together.
We can not simply lose touch or drift apart.
You show up and hug and cry and love.

Because we are family.

nine

Twelve years ago I met a boy. I've thought a lot about our month long courtship and what specifically it was that knitted us together to survive long distance and the military and civilian life.

Nothing rings loud. When we drove each other nuts we couldn't seem to get rid of the other. During the everyday we'd talk endlessly on the phone... don't remind my daddy about the $2500 phone bill. oops

Nearly everyone of our major life decisions went like this:
David, what if we...
*got married in three months
*took the Washington command instead of San Diego
*got out of the Navy (this decision was made by email. that's military spousing)
*move to Houston without jobs
*buy a house 5 years earlier than we discussed
*start an olive ranch

David is not only my enormous best friend, lifter of heavy things, reacher of high things, rubber of feet
for whatever reason he has the ability to take my dreams and make them his own
my crazy, spontaneous, irrational, big big dreams

I don't feel like he simply tags along
he genuinely grabs hold of my passion and makes it reality with a commonly spoken sentence in our house

Ok, what do we need to do to make it happen

Maybe we didn't have an epic romance, but it seems to me, nine years later we are an unstoppable partnership. And I love that.

2006  2007 2008 2010 2011 2013

Her First Week

She's been ours for a whole week. Actually, we've cared for her for two years now. But a couple of months ago, I happened to toss a toy mouse on the porch to see if she was interested, not expecting even a raised eyebrow. Instead the skinny black cat played with that mouse. I'd never seen that side of her.

Watching her play, realizing she remembered toys and therefore had a life indoors, and wondering when the last time she actually played... all that broke my heart.  I said "David..." and he said "I know, we've got to bring her in."

Last Thursday Wheels had an appointment with the vet, and was tested for everything under the sun, and is completely healthy. Quite a feat for an outdoor kitty. (This month we've had to get a routine thyroid check for Rigby, put down David's mother's cat, and now Wheels. I think our vet is going to have a very nice summer vacation with the recent influx of cash.)

We are using a slow and steady method with the introduction. Wheels has a base camp in my office and the other cats are slowly introduced. So far it is going very very well. 

I am slightly jealous of dog owners. If you get a new dog, the introduction is a day long process and then they work out the hierarchy of things. There is no hierarchy in cat society. As solitary animals they are sensitive to their territory. Not to say they don't develop friendships and in no way does this make them "mean" or "withholding of their affection." This is just their instinctive animal nature, much like a dog's instinct to chase cars, or dig up your garden. 

Cats are highly adaptive animals, and unlike a dog's desire to please their human, cats adapt on their own terms.

Rigby advanced through all the steps in a day. His first nose to nose, he sniffed and rolled over to show his belly. I think he would like to cuddle with Wheels but she isn't quite ready. So I've been giving him extra snuggles to substitute. Recently, the three of us spend 30 min(ish) daily in a room together.

Abbey is moving slower, but I'm very proud of her. When I got married, Abbey had been with me only 6 months. She was still very untrusting of people other than me. With all the guests in the house, she stayed under the couch the whole weekend and didn't even come out to say goodbye. Seeing where she has come from really makes me amazed at how well she is doing. Essentially she is acting normal other than curiosity around Wheel's base camp.

Wheels is a little champion. I make sure she gets lots of uninterrupted, loooooong naps and as much food as her skinny little belly can hold. We use play therapy to build trust, and I wait for her to fall asleep till I leave. We also try some room swapping, letting our kitties inspect her room while Wheels gets to inspect the rest of the house.

She wouldn't let us pet her face last Thursday, by Saturday she was getting chin scratches!

We aren't quite ready for free access yet. Which is to be expected. I was so so so worried about adding a third. But my kitties still sleep with me and still snuggle and that's all I ever wanted. 

Wheels to be safe and my kitties to love me. All three of them.

she takes my breath away

I lay in a sliver of sunlight with Abbey this morning. Our street is so quiet this time of day, around 10 o'clock. Even the birds have taken a twittering break, except for a dove calling, probably in the backyard.

After a sigh, or grumble, or whatever that noise means to her, she settled on the ottoman, resting her head on the bed.
And I laid my head down too and stared at her.
She opened slits of her eyes to look at me.

We looked at each other.

Her green glass eyes blinking. We don't need words for our language.
She says she is happy like this and could I stay a little longer.
I blink yes, and rest my head on my hands.

When I first found Abbey I wanted her. But would tell myself I didn't. I even said I would never love her like I loved Juni.
How I was wrong.

How much love I have to give when I let myself
in a quiet sun sliver of a moment.

He began a new journey

back in april during one of the coolest and longest Houston springs I can remember

I happened to notice a cocoon in a bed of bamboo in our backyard. It had likely fallen from a near by honeysuckle. He wiggled when I picked him up so I knew he was alive.

He stayed in the safety of his cocoon for just a few days. Howard H. Moth lived in a little tupperware container nestled in a cinder block placed under the eve of the house. (Mom found me a mesh onion bag to secure over his home)

Little Tersa Sphyx hatched in the middle of the night
emerged on a chilly morning

clung to a bamboo stalk in the wind and posed for at least 200 photos
and eventually flew away
beginning a new journey

He is gorgeous.

I was a bit jealous of his transformation, his freedom, his new world and life
leaving it all behind

 *look at that little smile in the center photo!

How strange

How strange it is to be anything at all. —Alice


It is silliness to try and plot the points of your life.  Paths wind and bend and turn back onto themselves.

The last few months have been strange.
I quit my new job
David quit his job
David got a new job
I'm unemployed... by choice, sort of

I quit my job because it just wasn't a good fit, which sounds like an interview answer but is the truth. I could have stayed and been miserable for probably a year and kept a responsible looking resume but really what is the point of that?

During the week I was contemplating quitting David had a networking meeting, liked the guy and stumbled into an interview. I quit and a day later David accepted a new job. We were quiet and just listened and felt like this is where we were being guided.

So, what's been going on since February?
Well when you wait your whole life for something and you get it and it isn't what you wanted and you are so so tired and don't have healthcare and don't know how you will pay for car repairs and sit alone in the house where thoughts aren't drowned out my coworkers and work calls...

Things, feelings, crept up on me I wasn't expecting. I slipped. Found myself dealing, again, with depression and anxiety leading me to an unhealthy place.

Right now the best thing for me is to take care of myself and figure out what I want and practicing a little (LOT) of self-care. So I'm not working. And not listening to my inner voice telling me I am lazy, meditating to the idea of freedom - flying in a light blue sky, the kind with wispy brushed clouds - practicing yoga, slowly pealing back some protective layers and trying to remember what Analee used to want and like and laugh about.


It is a wonder how anything happens. Big things and small things are all equal parts random and fate.

it calms me

Sometimes I get writers anxiety, which is kinda like writers block but narcissistic like, "can I do this? I don't even know what I am doing? What were they thinking letting me do this?"

Nothing new for me. In school, at my previous job, I always would sit down at the computer feeling inadequate and paralyzed by a general ACH! feeling. Would write about 3 words and delete it, repeat at least a dozen times.

And always when I am trying to bury that feeling in obsessive application of Softlips or drawing a pyramid doodles.

But what always gets my mind working again is this blog. Telling you a funny story about a cat or embarrassing David with an interpretation of a previous conversation. It maybe small, but it always works. After I click publish, I settle down and get to work.

Anne Lamott writes in Bird by Bird that she conquers this feeling (yay it is normal!) by keeping a 1 inch picture frame on her desk. Her challenge is just to write enough to fill that tiny space. That small box is less overwhelming that the expanse of a blank document.

Blogging is my 1 inch picture frame.
I just need to fill a tiny bit of this space to unlock what lies trapped under heavy chest, racing thoughts and sticky insecurity.




I also listen to Tibetan bowls, which strangely fills the quiet. Next time I'll share my I'm-on-a-deadline playlist which is very heavily weighted with a Batman soundtrack. It works. Really.

Out of the Cube: One Month

I spent the last five and a half years driving to the same building downtown and in the same cube, well when they finally gave me one. I remember being so excited I actually had a cube, and drawers and a bulletin board to pin pictures of Catasauruses and doodles.

But corporate life was hard for me. I can follow instructions, but not very good at following rules.
Last night I told David that I followed a recipe and then qualified that with well, not all the way but mostly, kind of.

That's me in to the letter. Great employee, hard working and willing to go the extra mile but resentful of rules for the sake of documented I-told-you-so's.

The initial plan in September was to become a freelance copywriter. To be really really out of the corporate world. I still might be headed there, or not. I like the idea of the career un-path. No lines, no ladders, just whatever opportunities come my way.


So I've been a journalist for one month. And I have lots of thoughts.

1. It is a lot harder than I thought to explain to people what I do. Journalist? Yes, a reporter. Like in the media? Yes. I write news stories. But just about real estate? Yes. And you write for the internets? Yes, like a millennial Kermit the Frog.

2. I am constantly battling self confidence and fear of incompetence. It is terrifying putting myself out there for the world to judge. I feel like a tiny baby reporter taking my first steps in a marathon race. Deer.in.headlights.

3. Which brings me to my next observation, this could not happen without the most incredible teacher in the world, my Daddy. Daddy what would you ask this person in an interview? Can I say this? Can I put a quote as the first sentence? But how do you know _____?

Where David spends hours trying to build me up and tell me I can do it, all daddy has to say is

"Stop thinking so much. Just get some words on the page and move on."

Just a month writing and I have more professional respect than ever for his work, his talent, his presence in this industry. He hasn't been with the Chronicle for 10 years and I field at least 3 or 4 emails a week asking if I know Ralph. Legend.

It makes me proud to add my maiden name in my byline. It is meant to be there.

Acknowledge It

Geez it is well into 2014 so I probably should acknowledge it at some point.

2013 Last year I took a post it and wrote the following:

Stay Grateful 
Change 
Just DO IT 

I couldn't have picked more encouraging words to guide my year. This is my fifth year looking back at each year and they are one of my favorite posts to reread over and over. I learn so much about myself.

1  accomplishments big and small
    *celebrated my 30th birthday
    *started drinking coffee
    *got a promotion
    *quit my job
    *got a new job

2  pleasure
    *Brynn Leigh Beth ♥ 
    *camping, hiking, breathing fresh air
    *vacationing with my parents
    *Kazoozles
    *Abbey's sweet kisses and tiny stampy feet
    *Rigby's wet chin and new nickname "Boogie"
    *Our friend Wheels
    *listening to B&D tell me stories
    *garden FINALLY survived
    *garlic press - where has this been all my life?
    *restaurant obsession of the year: Zoe's
    *candy obsession: RS Iddy Biddy Bunnies/Santas
    *road trips with Dp
    *youtube vlogs on the ipad

3  hurts and disappointments
    *Epicly Evil Earache
    *professional struggles
    *surrounded by illness and pain
    *giving up Montana
    *losing sight of the important
    *too busy to enjoy life, to nurture myself
 
4  forgiveness
    This might be the first year in a long time I don't feel guilty about not being enough for my family and
    friends. I am what I am.

5 thankful
   I have so much good in my life. a safe home, a family that takes care of me, friends that put up with me, a
   mind that allows me to amazing things that surprise even me.

Last thoughts
I wanted 2013 to be more than the last 4 four years. I set grand goals, and pretty much set myself up for failure. Because I was trying to impress something outside myself. When I stopped listening to what everyone out there said I should be my path became easier to spot.

Those three words on a paper kept me grounded, inspired and willing to ditch the fear and move on. Who wants to be trapped in the muck? I just want to keep going, see more sunsets, crunch leaves and gravel under my feet, find my voice and write, take care of myself and my family. I'm not quite done.



 Looking back:  2009  2010  2011  2012

Officemates

I work from home but occasionally get visitors.

To DP- I have a new catsistant.
Dp to Me- Is she clawlified?

Spray

When I used to wash dishes as a small child, standing on a kitchen chair, pretending I was making soups and stews with soapy water, I wished for a faucet sprayer hose.

I don't know where this obsession came from, but I wanted one. I wanted to spray the sides of the sink and spray my sister in the face. Oh how fun it would be to rinse a pan with a playful spray of water and not a boring stream straight from the faucet.

This morning after rinsing loose tea leaves from the sides of my sink with a cupped hand of water,
I stopped and grabbed my faucet sprayer.
It actually was fun.



ps- our second house in Houston had a sink sprayer. it wasn't fun at age 13 anymore. And neither was pretending to cook with dish water. Although now when I have to wash sink dishes I do pretend I'm Cinderella trapped by an evil ogre. 

pps- what was my mom thinking letting me wash dishes so young? i've seen my nephews was their hands, they are anything but thorough. Did mom come back behind me and rewash the dishes? Did we eat off of 6 year old washed dishes, and if we did - gross.