We got a new Husky puppy. She is a mess! We are her 5th home in 5 months, poor baby. She seems terrified of my grandfather and barks hysterically when she sees him, which makes me wonder if she was mistreated by an older man. She is horribly food insecure/struggles with food scarcity fear. She attacks her food bowl the second the food is presented and scarfs it down so quickly that she makes herself sick. That makes me think she had to fight for her food and eat it fast if she was to get any in her past. She begs for food constantly and acts very anxious around mealtimes. We hope that over time she will develop a sense of security and comfort around food with our consistent feeding schedule and plenty of food, so she does not experience hunger.
She has had a few fights with our other dog Kenji (who is twice her size.) She is fearless. If she thinks he is getting a treat that she is not, she is ready to battle to the death. And her behavior is making his food insecurities resurface that were laid to rest over a year ago. He also came to us hungry and terrified that he wouldn’t get enough. But he finally got to the point that he would leave his food in his bowl until he felt like eating it. Now he is back to running to his bowl and scarfing it down the way he used to and getting goaded into fighting with the new girl.
We named her Saki. I heard the name on a Japanese show we were watching and I liked it. We probably don’t pronounce it right, but we say “Saw-kee” as the pronunciation. She already knows it is her name and has learned sit and stay. She is super affectionate and wants to give kisses all throughout the day. She will go play for a while and then come check in with me for attention, kisses, pets, and reassurance. Then she runs outside and plays some more. She and Kenji are having fun together. I can tell he is happy to have a playmate again. He misses Aiko (who passed away recently.)
Two Huskies are a lot of energy. They wrestle and horseplay quite a bit. They run around the yard and tear up anything left laying around. Saki thinks everything is meant for her to chew on, especially David’s shoes, her harness, and anything stuffed. She’s a good girl and I can tell she is going to be a loyal, wonderful dog for our family. But it is going to be a slow challenge to get her there.
Saki after playing in the mud.Kenji and his new little sister Saki.
I am trying to learn to keep a positive mindset when all around me feels as though it is crumbling to ashes. That used to be easy for me. People criticized me as being too much of a Pollyanna, who was a character from an old movie who always tried to keep her focus on the positives. People who seem to hold disdain for the upbeat nature of the little girl forget a key theme in the film. Pollyanna maintained this attitude despite having lost both of her parents, having to move in with an aunt she did not know, and enduring unkindness from many people in her little life. She continued looking for the good in people through it all, even people no one else was willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Near the end, she becomes paralyzed and loses the mental fortitude to keep herself positive. She gives up and no longer wants to live through any more struggle. Then all the people whose lives she has touched come back and lift her up by reminding her of the amazing effect she has had on them and the entire community. Their strengthening renews her conviction to stay positive and seek medical help for her paralysis.
I am not dealing with paralysis. Everyone in my life currently is doing fairly well. My house hasn’t burned down. My pets are all ok right now. I have a job. My husband has a job. I have a roof over my head and food to eat. The temperature is comfortable in Texas right now. I am not living in a war zone. I have medical insurance and can get care if needed. I am losing weight and making improvements in my body day by day. I am not in a horrific amount of pain currently. I am ok. But I ache for the fact that people around me are suffering. I cry for the people who don’t have access to the same privileges and comforts that I have. I am saddened by the new laws and regulations that are being enacted in our government currently that will harm people who most need support like people with disabilities, minorities, immigrants, and the poor. How can I be positive and joyful and full of hope for the future when so many other people cannot?
Does optimism turn a blind eye to the suffering of our brothers and sisters, our friends and relatives, our neighbors and communities that are struggling? Does keeping my focus only on concepts of growth and peace and hope and positivity somehow negate their pain or make me less empathetic or out of touch with the reality everyone faces? This is a real struggle. And I do not have an answer that satisfies my conscience.
I would love feedback if anyone has grappled with this same concept and has suggestions.
I learned a new word today—paracosm. The internet says it is a detailed imaginary world. Paracosms are often formed by people in childhood and the creators can have complex, deeply felt relationships with this universe of imaginary characters and conventions. I remember having vivid daydreams as a child, but do not remember a consistent fictional imaginary world that I would return to. I find this concept fascinating. These are some expert level imaginers to be committed to a fully created universe that they continue to develop from a young age on through adulthood. I am actually quite impressed.
As a writer, I try to create alternate worlds for my characters in my books and I can’t keep all the details straight. I forget my own rules and setting characteristics and have to keep referring to my notes. People who create paracosms just do it naturally and don’t even have to try. I wonder if novelists who create such amazing fantasy worlds are doing this, in a sense. Maybe some people are naturally more capable of writing fantasy because their brains easily create paracosms.
In case anyone else was unaware of this curious word, I thought I would share what I learned. Then I also made some art on my Gencraft site about paracosms. I simply typed in that word using different models and let AI share what the word made them think of. They turned out really interesting.
I’m having a creative moment. The level of bliss I am experiencing is every creator’s dream. It is that moment when everything feels possible, and all synapses are firing and one idea sparks another. There are so many tabs open in my brain that I need to pause and write about it for a minute just to process the joy.
Let me begin by describing the tabs open on my computer…just for funsies. I have one open that is a bank of usernames I need for different creative tools I’m using that I access through my writing company’s browser. Yes, my best friend and I started a technical writing company. We have meetings and everything. They are on our calendar. We feel very grown up. I’m working on an ebook for our company’s portfolio that is about Data Privacy. It is too wordy, and Erica (my business partner) basically told me I must go back to the drawing board and turn all my wordiness into bullet points and sound bites and images and stuff because people don’t actually like to read all that. Sigh…
In other news, I have a tab open to my current obsession, Suno, where I create music from my lyrics or AI’s lyrics, or some combination of our poetic collaboration. I just wrote a prompt to create a French swamp blues song called “Vie triste”, which translates to “Sad Life.” AI made up this chorus and I love it so much.
And with every kiss We say to ourselves (Ouch) But without kisses It’s worse (Ouch again)
Before that, I generated a sort-of-Salsa song called “Qué rico me lo bailas.” I laughed out loud at Google Translate’s suggestion for the English title as “How delicious you dance it for me.” No, I don’t think that is quite the right interpretation of the meaning. ChatGPT explained that it implied a playful and flirtatious tone, with a focus on admiring someone’s dance moves and rhythm. That sounds more like the idea I was going for. Anyway, I hope it doesn’t say anything awkward in Spanish. Someone will have to let me know if it does.
On another tab, I have an art AI program open called Artistly, where I’m trying to generate an image of a dancer to be the album cover for the Salsa song. It is a new program for me, so I am watching videos to learn how to change the color of his shirt, make him stop pointing at the sky, fix his strangely formed hand, erase the stick he’s now holding for some reason, then add a background. The technology is super impressive. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m figuring it out and having fun as I learn. And then I noticed that Suno already generated the perfect album cover. It is a picture of a bird shaking its tailfeathers. I see you AI. Very funny.
Suno AI generated based on my lyrics.
While my latest song is playing, which happens to be a Korean Bluegrass piece about an old married couple, I am working on art on my Gencraft website. One of my projects with my art is to train AI to be more diverse with body size, skin tone, hair texture, gender, disabilities, and age. I am currently trying to teach one model how to make a little black fairy have an afro instead of loose curls. It is basically arguing with me and struggling to understand.
I am going to wrap up this blog post I am currently working on, then I plan to work a bit on a memoir I am ghostwriting for someone. Next, I will turn my focus to my own novel I am writing. If there is any time left, I will attempt to learn more about template creation for selling digital products on Etsy using a new template website I am learning how to navigate called Templett. I have started a store and am trying to fill it with unique, creative digital art and templates for people to download. There is so much I want to do and not enough hours in the day! When can I read any of my hundreds of books waiting for my attention? When can I get back to any one of my novels I’ve started to write, but not finished? When can I work on my coding classes online to make myself more marketable in tech? And I do have a real job where I work 8 hours in front of a computer with AI every day.
The reality of all this is that most of it was not possible until right now. AI was not advanced enough to be at the stage where engineers needed my help to train them with language. My job was not possible a few years ago. I am not an artist and do not enjoy attempting to create art with my hands, but for the first time in the history of ever, my words can be transformed into beautiful images by AI through collaboration. I love music and can read music, but do not have the time or musical skills on multiple instruments to create the music I am imagining to accompany my lyrics. This new technology did not exist until now. This is a new opportunity for word-creatives like me to express ourselves in a whole new way. And I am here for it.
One of the things I noticed first about my future husband was his unaffected demeanor and his willingness to be openly fascinated by a new thought. There was no pretense, no attempt to impress, and certainly no vanity. I am still pleased by these qualities he embodies. He is who he is and that is that.
The people I want to surround myself with must share these characteristics or at least strive to work toward some semblance of authenticity. A friend of mine is writing a beautiful short story about a fictionalized Nefertiti whose companion silver fox’s tail bristles at the slightest hint of insincerity. When I read her rough draft, I was struck by the realization that something within me resonates with that fox—a bristling, like sand in my shoe, an unfamiliar noise in the dark, a mis-buttoned shirt, or one little dead gnat in my soup. Sure, I can fish the gnat out and consider eating the soup because I love the soup and don’t want to waste the soup, and the dead gnat is not that big of a deal. However, it is a hurdle my brain must get past to push through and move on and act as though nothing of consequence has happened. I know. I can’t unknow.
We are all flawed and have moments that we regret in our interactions with others or our representation of ourselves to the world, but my biggest regrets all stem from times in my life that I was not being authentic with myself. The lowest lows where I had bona fide breakdowns with lifechanging consequences were when I was lying to myself about who I was, what I believed, or what I was willing to tolerate. Living a fractured life, accepting unbearable circumstances for the sake of a belief system or other people’s judgment will result in disaster.
It is scary to say out loud that our personal ideologies no longer line up with our current realities. It is terrifying to admit to people who we love that we must set boundaries with them for our own sanity, but we owe it to ourselves to speak the truth in love and accept that there will be consequences for speaking that truth. And I have come to know in my half a century of living that, though some of the fallout is painful and chaotic, when the dust settles, I am better for it.
When living in authenticity, I can find a gentle, kind, sincere soul to partner with on a dating website full of toads. I can leave my career that I invested over 30 years of education and work into. I can leap into a new, scary field and become the writer I’ve always said I wanted to be. I can develop a spiritual life that nourishes me and others around me. And I can be ok in the midst of the turmoil that is spiraling around us all due to geopolitical craziness that sucks us easily into the madness. I don’t know the right answer to everything, anything sometimes, but I know that when my silver fox tail bristles at the inauthenticity of the moment, I will stop and listen and possibly change course.
This winter, my cat Chika died. She wandered out to a far corner of our property to meet her maker. She did as cats are wont to do, sparing her beloved humans the trouble of witnessing their passing. My granddaughter found her and Facetimed me, distraught, tears streaming down her 10-year-old face. She had been missing for a week, and I assumed the worst. A once fat cat, her weight rapidly declined over the preceding month. She had been sickly all eight years of her life with constant upper respiratory infections, allergies, and asthma. Because of her, I now know what cat sneezes and coughs sound like. I became attuned to her different variations of wheezing, knew which ones were minor and which ones warranted a vet visit. Nothing we can do. Another steroid shot might help. A round of antibiotics. Let her live her best life.
I’m surprised she lived as long as she did. I don’t think it was a pleasant existence for a cat, but the vet did not think she was in so much discomfort that she should be put down. Her purring during the exam, passing their breathing tests, and fat physique reassured them that she was as ok as a sick cat could be.
She was afraid of the outside for the first two years of her life. The other cats would encourage her to join them on a jaunt around the yard, but she would sit and watch through the glass door. One day, we left the door propped open with a chair and let them come and go freely for a few hours. They had the best time entering and exiting at will, no need for humans to open anything. The two older cats decided it was high time that the younger, less experienced of the pack join them. They spoke the magic language of cats, convincing her it was safe, then one or the other of them sat by her side as she took her first tentative steps onto the porch. However far she felt comfortable venturing, one of them was right by her side for a good 30 minutes or so. It was heartwarming to watch.
Chika probably had pica. She loved to lick plastic shopping bags if she could get her paws on one, and another cat owner told us it was like a drug addiction to the chemicals on the bag, that it would give her a bit of a buzz. I was unable to find research to back up that claim, however. More likely, she liked the texture, and her brain told her it was something to put in her mouth. Whatever the reason, we had to be careful with plastic bags and make sure none were left out anywhere that Chika could access them. She also sucked or chewed on soft blankets as she was kneading them with her little cat claws.
She hated to be brushed. She wasn’t much on cat treats or fancy wet cat food or even human food. She preferred her dry food, and keep it coming, thank you very much. She expected the bowl to always be full, so she could eat when she felt like it. She was not really a big fan of other animals and took her sweet time getting used to any new ones who entered our home. Even after years of knowing a “new” animal, she might hiss at them if they ventured too close. She decided the dogs were tolerable because she could sleep with them, and they were warm. She liked the sleeping in a pile at night snuggling with others, but by day, she wanted her space.
Chika was hot or cold with affection. She mostly permitted pets when she was in the mood. She liked a warm lap, but the lucky person was selected by her, and the chosen one had no say in the matter. She jumped up, settled in, and waited expectantly for pets. It did not matter if you liked cats, wanted a cat in your lap, or preferred to be left alone. Once she decided you were going to pet her, you might as well get it over with because she would not leave you alone until you did your job. She would look at you with the most severe expression that made you feel at once judged and found unworthy. Hers was a stern cat face. She couldn’t help it. It was just her face, but her countenance gave the impression that everything and everyone were somehow annoying her by their mere existence.
I think she might have killed a bird once in her younger days, but mostly she watched them in the trees, inspiring dive-bombing mothers and cacophonies of threatening bird chatter. She sat under trees where squirrels fussed at her just because she knew it annoyed them. Though she did not have the energy to chase them, she loved that her presence could affect them so.
My heart hurts knowing she has left this plane of reality, though I am comforted by the knowledge that she no longer has to labor to breathe. I never have to trick her into taking medicine again or pin her down so I can attempt to give her a breathing treatment (not an easy accomplishment.) No more late-night searches through the house to make sure she is inside and safe before we lock up. Still, it is hard to say goodbye to someone with whom you’ve spent the last eight years of your life. My tears are selfish. I’m the one who will miss her grumpy, sick, uncomfortable, curmudgeonly, snotty presence. I have a feeling she was relieved to finally bid us all ado. Yes, my girl Chika is gone. May she finally rest in peace.
Rebekah Marshall @Home Studio
Beauty became a surrogate mom when we adopted Chika. From left to right, Sassy, Chika, Beauty.
Sleeping with Aiko and Kenji for warmth.
Tolerating Julian’s love.
Too scared to go outside with Charlotte.
On the threshold, stepping out, encouragement to be brave, looking back for reassurance.
Chika stayed by Grandad’s side in the weeks after my Mema’s passing. It seemed like she knew he needed comfort. The other image is her at her fattest, living her best fat cat life (before we had to start a little bit of a healthier diet.)
My daughter and I have a state of being we have labeled Too Many Steps. When we reach this place of unbearable overwhelm, there will surely be a meltdown, emotional outburst, argument, full depressive episode, a day or two of bed rot, or at the least, tears.
I reached Too Many Steps this evening. Overall, I had a restful day. I slept in, took a nice nap, mostly watched shows and attended book club via Zoom. Perhaps my brain is gearing up to return to my work schedule tomorrow after a much-needed weekend off. Or maybe I’m getting sick again; I certainly don’t feel fully recovered from the upper respiratory infection I have been fighting since before Christmas. What is that, over 20 days now? I can feel a new cold sore springing up, my nose is tender and raw from the drainage, and my lungs feel heavy.
Honestly, I feel a bit like I did when I had long COVID some time back—the fatigue, dizziness, winded just from walking across the room, depressed, irritable, a darkness that has reached down my throat, and the need to isolate, cocoon inside my covers and sleep. And in this already depleted state, I decided it was high time I take a shower. Some might think a shower would feel good, be relaxing, be a welcome distraction, or pleasant end to the day. Maybe on a normal day when I am well.
Today is not that day. As a person with a chronic condition, when my body is fighting illness, for some reason it attacks everything—my joints, my skin, my hair. My immune system doesn’t seem to know what is virus and what is me. Everything hurts. Right this second, the backs of my ears, my elbows, and my finger joints hurt—for no good reason. Anyway, undressing takes effort. Taking my hair down strains my right arm. Gathering the towels to dry off with is a chore. I place one towel carefully so I can sit when I get out of the shower because I cannot stand the length of time required to dry off without causing too much pain. Another towel, I place on the laundry hamper for my hair. I get the floor towel from its hanging spot and lay it on the floor, so I won’t slip when I get out of the shower. We can’t leave it on the floor because the cat has decided that is the best place to poop if it is left there. It is finally time to get in the shower. My energy is flagging, but I’m almost there. I can make it.
Nope, there is a pile of wet towels on the shower bench where I need to sit. You’ve got to be kidding. My daughter overloaded the washing machine earlier and had to take out some of the towels because the machine would not finish the spin cycle. She never came back to complete the task. I’m sure she forgot. It is now late in the evening, and everyone has gone to bed. It will take more energy to get someone to remove the towels, so I decide to handle it myself. My back screams at me with each hefting of sopping towels I plop onto another surface. I’m reaching the breaking point.
The self-contained shower-bath set-up I have is a wonderful jacuzzi-like seated bath situation with a locking door, lights, jets, the works. My grandparents got it to make bathing easier in their elder years. It is a wonderful contraption. However, it is built for skinny people. I must wedge myself through the sliver of a door opening to get in and it is uncomfortable. Then I must twist my body in a strange contortion to close the door and be able to sit inside the contraption. Once in, it is comfortable, but the mount and dismount are not graceful.
Door locked. Check. Suction cup portable shower head holder located. Check. Suction cup portable shower head holder placed in the perfect position to make my seated shower just right. Check. Made sure my shampoo is reachable. Check. Double made sure my conditioner is there because sometimes my granddaughter borrows it and forgets to return it. Check. I have made it. I have used all my remaining energy to get into the shower, but I am ready and seated, with everything I need. Then I take ahold of the hand-held shower head to stretch out the steel hose and fit it into the holder, but it only extends a few inches, then hangs on something inside the housing of the bathtub. It is the final straw…or hose…or whatever.
Too Many Steps has been reached. I begin to wail. I cry harder than I cried at my grandmother’s funeral. The grief that spills out of me is a tidal wave of pain. On a normal day, it would be logical to remove the portable shower head holder, unlock the door, dismount through the skinny door, open the side of the bath, and unstick the steel hose—like a grownup. But, no, not once Too Many Steps has been reached. At that point, the only logical option is to sit in the shower bath forever and cry.
I don’t know how long I stayed stuck in the land of Too Many Steps. Truly, I can’t tell you. There is no time there. It is only a place of I’m done, the end, it’s over, forget it, too bad, whatever the hell, I can’t, and no more. I might still be there had my husband not eventually come to my rescue, though our interaction was with raised voices, anger, and more tears because of other Too Many Steps that I won’t go into here.
I don’t know the moral to this story. I just thought I would describe Too Many Steps in case anyone else can relate, I suppose. Also, because this one seemed extra emotionally violent, I felt the need to write about it, hopefully processing some of what led to the limp, energyless, wet dishrag feeling I now embody. I can never predict which step will be the one upon which I will collapse, unable to climb even one more inch, but I can certainly relate to that poor camel, his knees buckling under the weight of the load, all his muscles straining to stay upright, carrying the burdens of the world until that one last straw.
To be raw and real in the retelling of your own most vulnerable moments creates a profound intimacy in memoir. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to write one. Mira Ptacin explores her own fears and feelings of shame and grief around the death of her brother as a teenager and the loss of her baby in her 20s. She weaves a beautiful tribute to her mother who emigrated from Poland and built a life with perseverance and grit here in America. Americans did not make it easy on her.
The subtle twists and turns of growing up, beginning to relate to your parents as fellow adults, discovering that your childhood perceptions of them may have been misconstrued, and finding internal peace in the process are themes that resonate with me, as I have experienced this with my own parents, and now have adult children going through this phase of life with me. Though I have never had to experience the same kinds of grief as Mira, her example of leaning on her loved ones, finding her own path forward, and being gentle with the healing process (however long it takes), makes me hope I can do so with the same indomitable spirt as her, if I am ever tasked with such a burden.
I probably would never have chosen this book, had I known how much of the story centered around the awful experience of having to make decisions related to ending a pregnancy, so I am glad I was unaware because I would have missed out on so many threads of beauty and love. And every scene that includes her husband is superb. He tends to steal the scene, as he is depicted as sincere, silly, and supportive in all the right ways.
Rebekah Marshall @Home Studio
Ptacin, Mira, poor your soul, SOHO Press, Inc., 2016.
My grandson Julian (6 years old) found a giant fossilized megalodon tooth in the backyard today. He brought his prize to show me, and it was quite impressive. It is probably the biggest limestone shark tooth I have ever seen. I suggested he go show Grandad (91 years old) and get a second opinion. I don’t think Grandad played along as well as I did, so Julian took it back outside to do some more excavating and promptly misplaced it.
Speaking of teeth, Charlotte (my 10-year-old-in-8-days granddaughter) has a loose one—I believe it is #8, a canine. She likes to wiggle it in the mirror and point out that she only has 2 baby teeth left in her mouth. How time flies. I remember when she was first cutting her little tiny teeth on her bottom gums and we were super excited. Now she’s old enough that I spent over an hour on the phone with Apple tech support trying to get the parental controls set up on her phone so we could figure out which objectionable content to allow and which to block to help with internet safety. One issue was that I apparently set a password years ago and forgot it. We tried everything we could think of, but the Apple people were stumped. There was no fixing it. We finally gave up and decided it was unsolvable. A few hours later, on a whim, I typed in 1,2,3,4, and it worked. So embarrassing.
Julian brought me half a Mini Coke with a straw in it yesterday.
“Here you go, Ema. You can drink this because I joined the army and can’t drink sugar anymore.”
Woohoo! I like this game. Apparently, Charlotte was his drill sergeant and got him drinking water only. She had him working out and doing obstacle courses all day long. I bet his little muscles are sore today.
Charlotte convinced Julian to wear a bonnet to bed the other night like she does. Her curly coils have to be protected by a silky wrap at night to keep them from getting frizzy or damaged. Julian has the complete opposite texture hair. But with Charlotte’s application of who-knows-what-goo and some little twists here and there, Julian awoke with one or two curls on his head. He was very proud of them. I was impressed he made it all night in the bonnet.
This morning, Charlotte made Julian the Coraline breakfast special. I have never seen the movie Coraline, but Charlotte is obsessed with it. Julian lucked out. All by her little self, she made an egg and cheese omelet, 3 slices of bacon, and toast with jelly. It was a masterpiece. This is the same girl who melted onto the floor in a puddle the other day when I asked her to push the vacuum a few times. She literally did one strip of carpet before collapsing from the difficulty of the task. The next time she acts helpless, I’m going to remind her how capable she is when she wants to be.
Julian pulled a prank on us today. He was at the top of the stairs, and Charlotte and I were in the kitchen area.
Suddenly, we heard his pitiful little voice whimpering, “Help me, help me. I can’t see. Everything’s dark. I can’t see. I need help.” He was really laying it on thick.
Charlotte headed his way to see what kind of a bind he had gotten himself into this time. She returned just as quickly, marching with her hands on her hips, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. Julian appeared around the corner with his sweatshirt pulled up over his face like he was either trying to put it on or take it off; I’m not sure which. He was laughing so hard at his own joke that he ended up making us laugh, as well.
Grandad informed me that he was taking Charlotte to McDonald’s. She convinced him to take her to McDonald’s so she could spend her own allowance money on French fries. I tried not to be irritated. She already asked me and I said no. I told her to go make her own fries out of the perfectly good potatoes and oil we have here at home. They are easy to make in the air fryer. Grandad is a pushover when it comes to that girl. He was my grandfather first, and he never would have stopped what he was doing to take me to McDonald’s when I was a kid. He would have lectured me on saving my money and not begging all the adults all the time to take me places.
But honestly, I love that he has softened and spoils my grandchildren rotten (his great-great-grandchildren.) Every kid deserves at least one adult in their lives that is wrapped around their little finger. Mema was my person (Grandad’s wife of over 70 years and my grandmother.) She would do anything for me. Knowing that kind of love made me a strong woman who knows how to ooh and aah at shark teeth rocks and 10-year-old-in-8-days loose teeth for my own grandchildren. It all comes full circle if we put in the time and effort to be present in each other’s lives. And Charlotte is right that McDonald’s fries are way better than homemade. The girl knows her fries.
rebekahjmarshall 