Halloween Day

I did my writing practice earlier today, in my spiral, but now I'm going to move some of that writing over here just to see what it sounds like in type.

It's Monday again.  And Halloween.  The fourth Halloween without Stephen and 157 weeks since he’s been gone.  Should I stop counting?  Part of me knows that in some form I will always be counting his loss for the rest of my life, simply missing him, but another part know is that he’s always with me and always will be.  Missing him and counting his loss is buying into the illusion of death but it’s not real, it just appears to be real.  If I practice releasing the illusion of death, practice releasing the idea that Stephen is gone, I will more quickly come to terms with a new reality, one that includes him in my daily life in a joyful way, not in a sad and grieving way.  It will be a much easier way to live, much lighter and more fun --- more active.

I may finally be ready to rise up from my crouching grief pose, balled up and weeping on the rocks.  I’m ready to forgive myself for failing him --- failing to save him.  He never asked me too, after all.  But he was afraid, he told me he was.  He was experiencing a world I could not see or even comprehend.  With methamphetamines, he shot himself down a water slide straight to hell and he couldn’t get back from that place.  I wish there was some way to tell his story in such a way as to expose this fact of brain damage from the drug and make it understood that it’s a one way trip, especially when a needle is involved.  Once the intravenous use starts, the door back to sanity slams shut and bolts and the nightmare begins in earnest on both sides of the door.  I guess that’s why they call it slamming.

This is what I didn’t know or understand 3 ½ years ago when Stephen and first used meth in his veins.  I didn’t know that as the needle found its mark and the plunger was expressed, the liquid hell carried him off, never to return.  I need to ask if others have come back from that swift slide out on the tide of methamphetamines.  I know people have come back from heroine used in the veins but I don’t know about methamphetamine recovery.

And if I can find the words to tell the tale, would anyone listen?  I, personally, was never attracted to LSD or anything in a needle; in fact, the very idea repelled me.  Why?  I was willing to smoke marijuana, snort cocaine, and I ate mushrooms twice.  And also I drink alcohol to excess for many years.  But why didn’t I allow myself to go all the way with drugs when I did “all the way” with so many other things? 

More McDaniel History

9:09am                              Writing Practice                               64°  Boise

It was so warm yesterday and overnight, I left the windows open in the house and it's still only 73° inside. Outside is soft and welcoming, a light breeze stirring the branches of Stephen's tree and wafting in through the window next to me whispering sweet nothings about the beauty it has seen already today. And it's still early! It's a gorgeous, pure perfect day and I could be sitting out on the deck writing in my spiral but no, I have my butt firmly planted in my writing chair and I'm going to do my work and enjoy my life from here right now. Later today I'll be going out, I'm taking my bike to Pam's at 4pm so that she and I can ride around the North End and then find a place to have her birthday dinner in Hyde Park.

Today is Rocky's birthday, too. He's 12, but he doesn't know nor care about that so I'll just give him some love like I do every day and tell him how beautiful and wonderful he is so that he can agree with me and then carry on with his life. I expect him to be around for many years to come, he's in terrific health and showing no signs of decline so he could be end up being the world's oldest cat. He can stay with me for as long as he likes and I'll love him to whole time.

I slept plenty last night, got a solid 7 hours before waking up to pee at 6:15am, then back to bed and back to sleep until after 8am. I turned off the light at 11:30pm last night and went right to sleep. I took a half of a PMer because I just couldn't risk not getting the sleep I needed for all I have planned to do today. I'm a little muzzy and could willingly go back to bed a while longer but I'm up now and the coffee is hot --- I'll get over it soon.

 After much searching through Granny's OreIda box, I found the stories I was looking for and have been pouring over them, trying to piece is all together in my mind and understand all the various relationships. Seems that Had McDaniel died in 1881 and left his wife, Rachael, with 3 young children at home at age 50. So I'm trying to figure out how his kids were spread out so far like that. Here's the line up:

William Harrison McDaniel, born in September 15, 1832 in Virginia (Father was Joseph)
Rachael Riley McDaniel, born August 4, 1837 in Bay City, Michigan
They married on March 13, 1856

1) William, born May 18, 1857 (All 7 children were born in Michigan City, IN)
2) Samuel, January 17, 1862
3) Nellie, November 22, 1864 --- died in 1880 at age 16, buried in Michigan City)
4) Abigail, November 30, 1871
5) Edward, January 2, 1873
6) Twins, Rachael and James, July 1, 1880 --- James died at birth, buried in Michigan City

William Harrison "Had" McDaniel died in 1881 and is buried in Michigan City along with his parents and two of his children. He was 50 years old and owned a butcher shop in town.

There is a 23 year spread for those children! When the twins were born, Rachael was 43 yrs old. The twins were born in 1880 and her oldest daughter, Nellie, died that same year. Nellie would have been her right hand helper with all the work at home and with the new babies but she was lost. What heartache that must have caused Rachael. And yet the reason for the tragedy is lost to time and so is her mother's grief.

When Had died, Rachael was 44 years old and had 3 young children still at home:
Abigail, age 10
Edward, age 8
Rachael, age 1 year.

And she owned a butcher shop. No mention is made if she worked the shop or what happened to it except that it was sold and then she moved to Spokane. Maybe the older boys worked the shop. William, the oldest at age 24, would have been plenty old enough to be trained and ready to take over the business that his father left. The next oldest, Samuel, would have been 19 when his father died, a grown man in those days.

So the big picture of the family is this: they were firmly settled in Michigan City, Indiana and had been for many years. The states of Michigan and Indiana were Rachael's home states, all she had ever know. All of the family children were born and raised in Michigan City, they owned and operated a business there, they had a house, although no mention is made of it, but it must have been big enough and nice enough to accommodate the family. They must have had friends and attended church. They had a well established life in Michigan City, Indiana and yet in 1885 or thereabouts, Rachael Riley McDaniel packed her belongings into trunks, gathered up her three small children and took the train to the Washington Territory, a trip of at least a month, maybe up to 6 weeks.

When I sit and think about Rachael McDaniel and what her life must have been like in 1880, after losing Nellie and then one of the twins at birth and then the next year, her husband, I see a woman in great pain and with plenty of reason to grieve. In addition to her losses to death, her own parents had moved from Michigan City to Spokane at some point (I haven't found that info or date yet) and she was missing her mother. I feel certain that her decision to uproot and move out West was based on grief and loss and a desire to be with her parents and feel cared for and secure once again.

And thus ends my writing for today. I'm beginning to feel like I know these people and can almost picture them. So much sadness in life and that goes for everyone, all of us, all down through time. 

Family History and Carolyn

9:32am                         Writing Practice                               55°  Boise

I went to bed an hour early last night and woke up at a little after 8am, just in time to stretch and breathe and plan my day. This is day 3 of actually gathering up words toward a book and I'm not sure where I am except that I've written for two days and then saved it in a document titled Beginning in a folder titled Learning to Live Far From Home. I thought I would start off with a little family history and I dug for and found the story I was looking for but it's not as fleshed out on the page as it is in my mind and so I'm a tad stalled about that. But you know, who cares! I'm going to write it as it is in my mind's eye and tell the reader that this is what I saw as I read the actual history put down by some cousin or other many years ago, as told to him by his grandmother Nellie. There is no first hand account, no one alive knows what happened or what it was really like and so who's to say that my version is far from the truth? All I really want to do is establish the idea that the people I came from were always on the move, never satisfied to stay and settle down. They had wanderlust in their genes and that's how they got from Scotland to the New World, that's how they got to Virginia, and then Ohio and then Indiana and then Rachael Riley McDaniel gathered her belongings and two of her children and hopped a train for the wild west ... Spokane, Washington. She wasn't a McDaniel in blood and I don't know how her people got to America but it was her intrepid spirit that brought the family to the west where they all spread out and many still remain.

Hardman, Oregon is a ghost town now and if it had been settled by people who could stick, it would not be. Perhaps. Who knows, there's really nothing out there. I want to take a trip and go see the area for myself. There's a motel in Heppner I could stay at for a quick overnight. I just wish Carolyn wasn't mad at me. She knows where everything is, although I could find the cemetery on my own, I'll bet. But I don't know where the Burton Valley is or McDaniel Canyon. I don't know where Kinzua was or Camp 5, although those places really have no bearing on this project. And do I really need to see any of it in order to write my stories? I've been there before many times, just not recently. I know that landscape, the high desert, the over-logged mountains that still haven't recovered from the logging activity of 70 years ago. At least that's what I remember, maybe it's no longer true. I should go see.

About Carolyn:  I really don't care if she's mad at me. She attacked me out of the blue a few months ago with stuff she created in her own mind by distorting and adding meaning to a conversation that had no basis in my reality. She made up stuff and then got mad at me, which is almost as bad as having a bad dream and waking up mad at the dream offender. Plus she threw in a list of things she found offensive about me and I could tell that she had been keeping a list on the side of things she could use against me in the future. John did that throughout our marriage and instead of dealing with issues as they came up and sticking to the subject, he would bring in his list and hurl it at me so that I could be defeated and the fight could be won. He had no interest in communicating and solving the issue, he only cared about winning the fight, being right and then forgetting about the whole thing and moving on. Which, of course, never happened. Carolyn doesn't respond to any of my e-mails and she's touchy as hell when she does.

Well, I don't care. I don't think I could last a day in the car with her anyway, she has the very worst bad breath I'd ever smelled because of her rotten teeth. Now there, how's that for stashing away an offensive bit of information to use at a later date? I'm just as bad as her in so many ways. Plus she's mean about my mother and I'm not going to be around that if I can help it. I knew my mother better than anyone except my dad and now that she's gone, I've forgiven it all and only the love is left. I'm not going to rehash her faults and weaknesses with Carolyn or anyone else.

OK, I got off track with that but I'm glad I wrote it down. Now I can move on. If I need to make a trip to explore Hardman and the area over there, I'll do it without her.

So far today, I have nothing toward my words for the book. I know what I'll do! I'll plug in the headgear and read in an entry from my journal about home that I wrote a few weeks ago. Yes, that has to be done anyway. So off I go to do that now. 

Day Two

10:10am                         Writing Practice                         60°  Boise


I got my good start yesterday, 970 words. I edited it a little this morning based on what I found while revisiting the while box. It took a while to find what I wanted, what I had read before. I found the stories finally but they weren't in the detail that I see in my mind when I think of them. My mind has done a trick and has fleshed out the stories in such a way that I can see people --- it has provided details that were not on those pages when I read them four years ago and they're still not there. The stories are rather flat, in fact. If I can tell them the way I see them in my mind, they will be exciting and touching and if I tell them in that way and make sure the reader knows that the details sprang to life on their own without my even knowing it, maybe that will be OK.

Rachael Riley McDaniel is the intrepid character of this story but cousin Carolyn McDaniel assures me that she was no big deal. I hope my differences with CMcD can be resolved so that I can ask more questions. Rachael's husband, James Harrison McDaniel, "Had" is what he was called, died at age 50 and left the family adrift. Rachael had grown kids that were married but she also had some young ones still at home. They owned a butcher shop in Michigan City, Indiana. Had was the only son of Joseph McDaniel, originally from Virginia. Why they moved to Indiana is anyone's guess. Joseph and his wife are buried there and so is Had.

After Had died, Rachael sold the butcher shop, packed up what she could take, grabbed the kids still at home and hopped a train to Spokane, Washington, about 2000 miles away. Who does that? I'll have to read the account again, it seems that some of her family had moved out there and she was going to be with them. But she left her grown sons and their families in Indiana, along with her home and all her friends. She struck out heading west with a few trunks and a kid on each hand at an age when most women were beginning to settle into to the grandmother years.

Just to put this in context, Rachael would be wearing skirts that covered her legs. Women did not have the vote, they barely had a name of their own which was only used by family or close friends. She would have been called Mrs McDaniel at all times. Also, train travel in those days, while considerably faster than the alternatives --- horse, horse and wagon, foot --- it was by no means fast. The trip from Indiana to Spokane, WA took at least a month, probably closer to six weeks! Six weeks with no bed, no shower, very little food except what could be scrounged along the way. That trip alone strikes me as fantastical and I wish Rachael had kept a journal. I don't have the dates of the trip so I don't know the time of year they traveled. So much has been lost through the years and now a major life journey has been relegated to a sentence in a paragraph that includes no details at all, except the ones provided by my own vivid imagination.

After breakfast, I'm going to scan the pages I found and e-mail them to Carolyn. Maybe that will warm her up, although as far as I know, once she has turned on someone, she never turns back. That also must be a family trait. I'm going to find some answers to my questions and try to formulate a narrative to start this story off. Because as far as I can tell, Rachael Riley McDaniel was the ancestor who provided the genes that kicked off my life as a risk taker and a mover and wanderer, always searching for a home the was out there somewhere, just out of sight, never where I lay my head. To understand my life, I'd really love to have a story for hers.

694 words today.

Day One of The Home Project

10:53am                             Writing Practice                              58°  Boise


The old woman looked at me, her eyes vacant and myopic through the thick lenses of her glasses.

“I don’t know you.” she said.

“It’s OK Granny, I know you and I’ll remember for both of us.”

  

I’ll remember for all of us ….

And thus begins my first book. This will either be on the dedication page or it will be the first sentences of the introduction. Either way, I'm so happy I remembered this! I said that to her long ago on one of my visits to her care facility. I would say Home but it wasn't really a home, it was a place to hang out while waiting to die. The workers there are trained to help bathe and change soiled panties. 

I remember the last time I saw my Granny. I was visiting my parents in Hermiston after I had put all my stuff in storage and hit the road to see what I could find. Stephen was with me on the trip but I went to see Granny alone --- I wanted to take my time and really be present with her because I knew this would probably be my last visit. I didn't know where I would end up or how long I would be gone and she was a few months from turning 97 years old. I wanted this visit to last me the rest of my life. 

Granny had begun to lose her memories after she turned 80. She fell apart a little after that birthday, I don't think she could wrap her mind around the fact that she was 80 years old. She had always been active and sharp, full of life and ready to laugh. She used to brag about going to the Old Folks Home and volunteering to help, winking because so many of them were younger than her. She was very proud of her vigor and good health; she went to the senior dances three times a week and had a lovely wardrobe of gowns to dress up in when she went. 

She was born Opal Grace McDaniel in 1908 in Morrow County, Oregon. I'm not sure if she was born in Heppner or Hardman but I'm pretty sure she was born at home. She was the fourth child of Edward and Emma (Pennington) McDaniel. Her mother died in January 1912, pregnant with a fifth child, when a flu ravaged the area of Idaho where the family was staying while Ed looked for work. They were living in a tent in the middle of winter with all those kids and who knows what they did for heat or food. Dirt poor doesn't begin to describe the situation and it's amazing that any of them survived. Little Opal had just turned three a few months before her mother died and I believe the effect it had on her traveled down through time and continues to leave a trail of tears for all the maternal love that was lost that day. In fact, I believe that the death of Emma McDaniel was the precursor to the death of my own child, Stephen Sandknop, 101 years later. But that's a long story, convoluted and hard to tell. And somehow, that's the story I'm going to try to tell. 

I think. Sheesh! It's so confusing, I'm not really sure what I'm doing writing all this except I said I would and I promised Granny that I would remember for all of us. Auntie Jan also wrote her stories from her young life and that's a real help in putting this all together, that and what I already know and have experienced. 

A few years before Granny died, I was packing up my car, preparing to leave from a visit with my parents in Hermiston in 2003, when Dad came walking out of the garage carrying a white cardboard box, an OreIda Tator Tots box, to be specific. This family of mine was not very good at record keeping, to say the least! Anyway, he handed it to me and I thought I knew what was in it. Years before, I had been planning to stay with Granny for a few weeks and help her put a cookbook together. I had an airline ticket from Chicago to Portland but a few days before I was to leave, she had a nervous breakdown and got shingles. I'm pretty sure I caused that episode by pressuring her to let me help her compile that book. The trip was cancelled and never spoken of again, except she told me she would put all the notes in a box and give it to me when she saw me next so that I could do it on my own if I wanted to. So when Dad handed me that box, I thought it contained recipes. I took it home and stashed it in the garage, moving it along with all my other stuff nine times in the next six years. It finally came to rest in my shed when I moved into this house  on Latah in Boise in 2007.

Then one spring day in 2012, as I was setting up my deck furniture, preparing for summer in the house where I still live, I came across that box in the shed and thought, hey! I should at least open it and see what's inside. It's my inheritance, after all. Granny had died in January 2006 and I had not given that white box of hers a second thought in all that time. So I put the patio table together, opened up the umbrella and pulled up a chair with the box in front of me. I slit open the tape, damaged as it was from all the years and moves, and disappeared into another world.

OK, 964 words today ... a perfect start to my intention to write 500 to 1000 words a day until I get a first draft written on or before March 25, 2017. Day One is a rousing success and tomorrow I'll have found the stories I want in Granny's OreIda box and get them added.

Define HOME

9:48am                               Writing Practice                           54°  Boise

Chilly and windy today but sunny. It rained last night and the deck is wet but that should be it for the rain for a while. Tomorrow is my yard sale. The neighbors are doing one too, there will be plenty of activity out front and tomorrow should be warmer, more hospitable for a day outside. I'll get my coat out of the shed. And I have to go through stuff today, find items to offer so it looks like I have things to sell. Mostly I want to get rid of the bigger things that don't fit in the house.

In two days I haven't gone into the back bedroom to get anything set up. I'm so glad I moved my studio home! If I'm going to ignore it all, at least it's not costing me extra money every month. I got some errands run yesterday. I finally got to Walmart with my list and I picked up my birdhouse lamp from the shop. $30 to fix the switch! Holy Cow! But I didn't ask for an estimate, didn't even occur to me to ask. You'd think I would have learned my lesson about that with the red bar stool episode. I could have asked Joe to fix it but I didn't. Actually, I did hint that I had a lamp with a broken switch and he declared that he wasn't a repair guy. So there, that's why I didn't ask him.

Last night I sat down and completed the list of lifetime addresses and I came up with 55 started at age 5 when Mom married Richard in 1958. They had an apartment in Santa Ana, or at least I think it was in Santa Ana. 1958 to 2007, which is when I moved in here, that's 49 years. I have had 55 homes in 49 years. Wow. No wonder I have no idea what home is. I wonder if others are able to define the idea of home or if this is an issue for many and they just don't talk about it. I think Home may be a multilayered subject and the exploring of it could take a while.

I just found this article on a blog site from 2012 and it's a pretty good discussion on defining Home:  http://www.thelongestwayhome.com/blog/how-to-live-overseas/what-is-the-definition-of-home-2012-edition/

In a way that article helped clarify that I've been looking for a home all my life thinking it was a place or a building but in reality, I was looking for me and for the meaning in life, for my life's purpose, for the insights as to what I'm supposed to be doing here. Because that's the issue, I now see. My parents hijacked me with that religion at a young age and I never had a chance to discover my life or my purpose for myself. I've never felt at home in my own life, never learned to define it for myself since it was always so closely defined by someone else. That's why I was so willing to step into the lives of others and join them like I did with John and perhaps why my marriage to Bob was such a failure because he didn't have any better clue about home or life's purpose than I did and we were never able to define it or create it for ourselves. He went on to Shelly, joining her in her life and her house and he lived like that for 20 years. And when he left her, he moved on to Linda who had a more interesting life and he joined her and became a realtor.

Wow, so much I didn't understand about this idea of home and how the search for it has been the driving factor in my life and in all my choices. I'm going to enjoy this writing project! There's so much of me to discover here inside.

VHS Tapes and Other Issues

7:56am                         Writing Practice                          52°  Boise

First day of Fall, officially, but it's been turning since July. Basically, it's almost winter. Another month and that will be it, snow will be flying. I remember one October 13th, we got snow --- big, puffing, heavy, wet snow that didn't last but the day and it wasn't too cold. When was that? 2010 maybe? I remember working at the diner, that's the image I get when I think of it ... the diner and State St in the snow. Then in 2014 we got an arctic blast on November 10th and that was it, winter was on and we got an early winter the next year in 2015 as well. I like it when we don't get snow or ice cold until at least December. That gives the trees and other growing things time to prepare before it hits. My pear tree out back has just started with a few yellow leaves, it needs to get on with it. I like to get the leaves cleaned up before the worst weather hits and that's hard to do if the weather hits too early. Maybe I'll try to get out there a few times and keep up as they fall. I don't want slimy leaves on my new deck.

It clouded up and rained yesterday and overnight. The forecast is cloudy today and tomorrow but clearing up to sunny and warm for the rest of the week after that. Guess I'll have a driveway sale on Saturday. It's early yet and still wet out back, especially the deck. Mostly I just want to get stuff cleared out and I don't have a way to get it to the Youth Ranch so I'll do it from here. No big deal. Nothing will be marked, I'll just get what I can from things and be glad of it. I went through the DVDs last night and sorted out a whole bunch. Today I'll sort the videos and only keep the very best, rarest ones. Then I guess I'll throw the rest away. Wait, not so fast ... I just checked online and it seems that VHS tapes are considered electronic toxic waste and I can't just toss them into the landfill. But no one else wants them either. I just posted about it on Facebook, we'll see if anyone has any ideas or if there is a local option for proper disposal. I also have an old tube-style TV to dispose of and I can do that next Tuesday at the hazardous waste set up at Albertson's on Vista. Perfect! Maybe they'll take the tapes as well. I'll ask.

The cats are sitting on the back of the couch looking out the window; you can see the disgust at being trapped indoors wafting off of them like fumes. I hope it dries up enough to let them out this afternoon --- otherwise I'll have some pretty unhappy cats.

Well, I woke up too early, yet again, and now I'm sitting here wanting to go back to bed. The dark day doesn't help. This is a perfect day for a lie-in or keg-up. But I really want to solve my sleep issues! I stopped taking my sleep aide a few weeks ago when I read that it damages the brain and may contribute to dementia and Alzheimer's. Dang! On one hand, what the study showed was a 19% increase in the chances of getting those conditions if one pill a day is taken. I typically take a half pill with my magnesium. I also take my Juvenon which is good for brain health and so is ASEA. You know what? I may be willing to take my chances since I'm taking such good care of myself otherwise ... I need my sleep! Sleeping lousy messes up my whole day and I just hate it! On the other hand, both my grandmother and my mother suffered from dementia of some sort but neither of them took care of themselves like I do. Also, the study suggested that the damage was permanent, which means that any damage I've already done is done, no reversing that. I'm not sure I believe it, other studies show major brain plasticity even under the most dire circumstances. After all is said and done, I'm going to begin taking my half-a-blue-pill again and see if I can steady out my sleep. Starting tonight.

Yesterday I hand-wrote a bunch of stuff about Home and I also have a whole page of notes in my Spiral, so today I'll get out my headgear and read all that into a document for the files. Soon I have to begin my project in earnest, I've vowed to write 500-1000 words a day until I get a first draft complete, on or before March 25th. Six months. I can do this. I want to do this!