My brain loves a good nap

In praise of the noble nap.  It turns out that our brain loves a good nap. For those readers who have followed my life over the last several months, you know that my brain was giving me some trouble last summer.  It was kind of letting me down.  It was making me lose my balance and fall down; it was making me feel very fuzzy about a lot! It was creating some other indelicate issues that I won't go into here, but suffice it to say, I had become a "hot mess". So I did what all of us should do when things do not feel right and I went to my Doc. Together, and with help from a range of specialists, we began to figure out what was up. 

In late September, I had brain surgery to relieve the hydrocephalus that was causing my problems. This, by the way, in the midst of a pandemic. I won't go into the gory details here but it was a success and after three weeks in the hospital and subsequently rehab, I was sent home to continue healing and to continue "remembering Perry'.  This last expression was coined by my daughter who chronicled much of the saga and was inspired by our watching  the wonderful Disney movie, "Finding Nemo". 

When people ask me how I'm doing, I tell them that I nap a lot.  If ever there was a good excuse for napping, recovering from brain surgery is surely on the list.  And surviving a pandemic should be on it too. And let's add living in Vermont in winter when the days are cold and night falls early.  We are pretty much locked up at home.  The best I can do to feel like the extrovert that I am is to zoom with friends.  I do get outdoors every day, often walking in the woods with Smooch, my trusty sidekick.  I've been playing brain games on Lumosity.  The rehab doc, who I saw a few weeks ago, told me that the first six months post brain surgery are the time when the most healing happens so we need to "throw everything at it".  So I am exercising my brain and my body.  And I'm napping and dreaming of the day when I'll be able to lounge in my camp tent and after my nap, I'll be able to have dinner with friends. Now those are sweet dreams.

There are so many things you don't know about me

 One of my favorite things in life is revealing to people (particularly people who are much younger than I am) that I have been to Burning Man, not once but several times.  There is always a pause, sometimes a small gasp and ineveitably, some flavor of affirmative comment-  "That's so cool."  "Wow, you?"

And then I smile  knowingly and decide how many stories to share.  And believe you me, there are stories. There's the "critical tits" bike ride when hundreds of women ride topless through the desert. There's the  playa choir that I discovered my very first year and have sung with each year since.  This is the most soulful, spirited choir I have ever sung with.   The year that Michael Jackson died brought a particulary poignant memory.  We sang an arrangement of "Man in the Middle" and many people in the crowd just sobbed.  There were the epic drives in the RV and the sonic blasts from a nearby camp that woke us up in the middle of the night. (night, what night?)

Why is it so much fun to surprise people with your sordid (or savory) past.  Another place where I have loved to share stories of my misspent youth is at my summer camp. I am most definitely one of the senior citizens among the staff.  The young counselor staff range in age from 17 to mid 30's.  There are a few older staff like me who just love the place so much they keep returning whenever they can, but for the most part it is a young crowd.  These young women work hard during the day and many of them party hard at night, staying up into the wee hours of the morning.  Then they wake up the next day and do it all over again.  Ahhh those were the days.  Indeed there were days in my youth when I was right there.  I love to share the story of the night I "fell asleep" down the road at the boys camp and woke up at about 5:00 AM.  In order to return to my tent without getting caught, I drove stealthily down the road, parked my car and stripped down to my underwear and a t-shirt so if someone woke up and saw me I could claim I had just gone to the bathroom.  HA! My young counselor friends find the story hard to believe. 

There is so much of my life that seems hard to believe now.  The days when I was at the pinnacle of my career are in the rear-view mirror. No more flying thousands of miles a year, meeting with high-powered people, solving big thorny business problems.  Gone are the days of speaking at large conferences and enjoying lavish dinners out with clients. Yup.  Now it's pretty much dinner on the porch with my husband, my dog and a few friends.  I can now indulge my passion for music and theatre.  But I don't often share stories of my career with my actor friends.  Who cares, really? For now, this is my life.  This is me.  And there will always be so many things you won't know about me. 

(This post was originally penned on 8/8/20)

Zen and the Howling Hour

I live in a small town in Vermont, atop a hill overlooking the CT River Valley.  There are approximately 2500 residents in our little town and between my husband serving on the planning commission and me directing the 5th and 6th-grade musical, we've met most folks in town.  I also attend the Congregational Church on Thetford Hill which is a lovely community church with a very affirming congregation.  I'm extremely proud of my state of Vermont and my county (Orange) that have both done so well in addressing the current health crisis.  Vermont is one of four states that has been touted as "flattening the curve" as swiftly as almost anywhere else.

Having moved to this town ten years ago from the Boston area and a town ten times the size, I have been slowly acclimating to a different pace of life.  Most people move to Vermont for the beauty of the place, the wide-open space.  I once complained to a friend that I was frustrated that people were so slow to respond to emails.  He reminded me that many people move to Vermont so they won't have to respond to email, at least not in a big hurry.

When we bought our house we knew that we would inherit some challenges. It is a farmhouse built in 1850 on 4 acres, But I fell in love with it. Our home inspector, in his report, noted the age of the furnace, the foundation with some crumbling bits, the roof that would need to be replaced sometime soon and then at the very end of the report, he said this- "despite all of the inevitable problems the house will present- when you're sitting on that screened porch, looking out over the view, sippng a glass of port, life won't get any better than that." It all turned out to be quite true, except for the bit about the port. I'm more of a chardonnay girl.  It is a beautiful place and all the more so now that we are quarantined at home.  There are endless projects to tackle, gardens to tend. I even have a camp tent which goes up in the summer for afternoon naps. Talk about social distancing.

But it is a small town and it's a rare event when we have the opportunity to really feel connected to our neighbors.  This weekend as we sat watching the PBS Newshour, there was a segment about a town in Montana that does a "howling hour" every evening at 8:00.  Residents come out of their houses and essentially howl into the night.  This is all in support of the front line workers who are helping us all stay safe.  It's the healthcare workers and folks manning the grocery stores and pharmacies.  The gratitude that we should be expressing to these folks is boundless. So I thought that we should give it a whirl on our little hill in Thetford.  I sent an email around to some neighbors, many of whom had seen the same news program and suggested we try it.  I wish I could say it was a rousing success.  We did howl on that first night.  My neighbor up the hill had a friend visiting who joined our chorus enthusiastically and I heard some neighbors through the woods let out a howl or two.  I did my part by howing from our porch.  It felt pretty exhilerating, I must admit, but then we all went back to our quiet, peaceful lives.  We didn't do it again and I realized that most people who live here like things to stay quiet and peaceful. We'll let the coyotes do the howling and we'll appreciate our front line workers each night from our own living rooms.

(This post was originally penned on April 26, 2020)