Doing Their Own Thing (What You Wanted Them to Do in the First Place)

It's a tough balancing act, this line caregivers walk when trying to steer kids in the right direction.  I made the mistake of pushing a bit too far with my older daughter, a musical whiz who can proficiently teach herself any instrument of her choice.  That's the problem with gifted and talented children- it has to be of their choosing and it generally, from my experience, has to feel natural, like it's their thing.  Once there is interference, no matter how well-meaning, kids lose interest.  It's a classic case of reverse psychology through oppositional defiance-- kids are turned-off by anything their caregivers deem to be remotely hip, because they're trying to find their unique Self.

It reminds me of this old Sesame Street video where viewers have to pick the one kid who is doing his "own thing".

For Julia, my 14-year-old, I hired a classically trained concert pianist/composer who hailed from Romania to provide lessons.  As a mother, I know what the kid is capable of achieving... greatness, of course! But I failed to understand that Julia has her own style of learning and of creative inspiration that have little to do with strict teachers telling her that her scales are sloppy.  I actually, for a brief moment, thought that hiring this type of person was better than Julia free-wheeling music in her own creative, fun, and interpretive manner that results in a unique sound all her own.  I was mistaken.

According to school testing and learning metrics, my younger daughter, Angelina, prefers to operate using logic, reasoning, and organization.  She categorizes and sequences, attempting to make sense of the world around her.  So naturally, her scores in Maths and Sciences are high.  Even as a talented artist and writer, her pieces have a sense of precision.

Since we are a household of musical geeks who love technology and nature, she wanted to do something that seemed to gel well with the rest of us and declared last year, "I want to be a florist and have a shop in Manhattan.  I will have to study art and botany in college."  Learning from my early mistakes with Julia (sorry Julzie, the first kid is always the guinea pig... but, you're fine! Right? Mommy learned and from this point on, I will not stand in the way of your liberation from expectations!), I backed-off and let her sit with that idea, telling her that being a florist is a fine profession.

Secretly, I wished she would pursue a career in science.

Ang also watches a lot of YouTube- mostly popular and goofy bits.  Recently, on several occasions, I have noticed she is immersed in watching neuroscience videos that are about ten minutes in length.  She literally sits glued to the computer, watching video after video about how the brain works, for hours.  I am careful not to comment and say something like, "You're a GENIUS! I mean, what 10-year-old wants to watch these videos?  Furthermore, what 10-year-old understands these videos? Do you want to go to science camp? I will totally send you to science camp!"

It is with all my might that I restrain myself.

Last night, Angelina said, "I don't know what I want to do when I grow-up." I told her that she had a while to figure that out and shouldn't worry, and that she should do whatever it is she enjoys.  She said, "Well, I don't think I want to be a florist anymore."  So, I said that was fine and she continued, "I would like to study science, I think.  I'm really interested in the brain and how the brain works.  Like when why we see optical illusions and stuff like that."

I told her neuroscience is a fine profession.

Google Maps on Nintendo's WiiU- A Refreshing View

As early adopters of most things technological, we love being on the edge of the latest consumer trends.  When Nintendo's WiiU arrived on the market last year, we bought one knowing that the supporting software was not quite up to the consumer's or to Nintendo's expectations.

Nintendo, at least in our experience, has always delivered products and innovations far ahead of its counterparts.  Not only does it deliver, it does so with impeccable class and style from design to the finished product.  Nintendo has always seemed to care more about maintaining a strong reputation for excellence than it has in producing quantity.  So, as a consumer, I know that if I buy Nintendo anything, I can't go wrong- because the stuff is also easy and FUN to use!

Knowing that updates would take place in the future, the future is now and Nintendo sent its latest update in the form of Google Maps.  Licensed by Google to Nintendo, Google Maps can now be fully interactive using Nintendo's state-of-the-art controller which incorporates the same gyroscopic technology seen in smartphones.  Here are some videos we shot using Google Maps on WiiU- you can see how much fun it is to just explore our worlds in the comfort of our living rooms, seeing places that maybe we would never have the chance to see.  Check it out for yourself!


Video #1 was shot with an iPhone 4.
Video #2 was shot with a Google Nexus 4.

On the Importance of Maintaining Religious Freedom

     Religious freedom should always be protected. I think protecting religion is so important so that we, as a whole people, can naturally come to realize organized religion and its dogmas are a hindrance to social progress.  It's like the difference between kids whose parents made no attempt to hide aspects of life versus kids who kept from everything deemed "bad" or "adult".
     The Puritan families wind up with the most fucked up kids.  If you happen to be ultra conservative with your children's upbringing in terms of not allowing your kids to explore their world without fear and secrecy, then your kids are going to be a mess.  While deviating slightly from a permissive parenting style in the sense of passing on to progeny some sort of ethical fortitude, it is important for healthy people to be able to explore and sample different aspects of life.  If life remains in such darkness, the seeker will always look for light.
     When tolerance and freedom to explore are the central factors in one's upbringing, suddenly, the taboos of life are diminished.  All the "sins" suddenly become less sinful.  Now, I'm not talking about breaking universal taboos like incest, child abuse, and murder if we all get out there and give it the college try, attempting to desensitize society.  What I am saying is that when we make nothing in life more special than something else, we see that nothing is shocking.  Life becomes less enigmatic and more pragmatic.
     Here's where religious freedom comes into play.  If there is no freedom, there are two possibilities that remain which are similar to Cannon's "fight or flight" response: 1) Freedom is sought and/or 2) Freedom is not sought.
     In the first instance, since its inception, the battle to pursue organized religion has only lead to war and death. From the Crusades to the American Revolution, the cause is the same.  Prohibit or attempt to suppress any behavior, and the one exhibiting the "negative" behavior will continue to rebel either in secrecy or in overt, physical manners.
     In the second instance, one might note a person forced into religion by birth, marriage, etc.  In modern times, this seems to be a more accurate portrayal of most people born into democratic cultures.  You are what your parents are- in the case of most, what your father is or was, unless one is Jewish, in which case, it follows the mother's lineage.  One time, when I was about 10, I asked an orthodox rabbi, "Rabbi, Jews say that if my mother is Jewish, then I am Jewish; yet, Catholics say that I am what my father is. So what am I?"
     "Is your mother Jewish?" he looked at me, bending down to my level.
     "Yes."
     "Then you're Jewish," he said, shaking his head in the affirmative.
     "But, Rabbi, my parents baptized me Catholic."
     "It doesn't matter, we don't recognize that.  You're Jewish."
So, basically, even if I choose, am indoctrinated, swear allegiance to any number of gods or goddesses, or choose no religion at all, I am Jewish, at least according to some people.  If I lacked the kind of freedom that was really given to me by my parents, I might actually think I must be Jewish.  Every other religion is the same- you are what your parents say you are, because their parents told them what they are and so on.  This is a classic case of blind leading the blind.  Why are we waiting in this line? Oh, just because there is a line! I see... you mean some guy is just tying his shoes?  This alternative reality to religious intolerance is far worse than the former, as people become sheep, "Sheeple".  Unfortunately, sheeple follow the pack.  They raise their hands, speak when spoken to, believe in a Golden Rule, not because it comes from a deeper understanding of human suffering and the need for compassion, but because they were told of it, over and over again.  It was drilled into their heads as basically as the ABCs or simple arithmetic.  These are people who completely lack all advanced moral development.  Kohlberg believed most people fell into the category of defining morality according to rules and the law--maintaing order above all else.  This is why people can accept "safety and security" above their own liberty.  I'd rather fight.  There is more honor, though life might not be as long lived, like Bertolt Brecht's character, Mother Courage, an ironic name given to a woman who profits from war by claiming allegiance to whomever the ruling occupiers were during the Thirty Years' War.  That's how she stayed alive, and is the ironic facet to her name, she simply flew the flags of those occupying and never really showed any courage- but she stayed alive.
     When religious freedom is protected in society and especially in the home, or when a kid is allowed to sip wine at dinner with her parents, there is no mystery, no need to seek.  There is no need to binge drink with one's buddies, learning the hard way that lying face down in one's vomit is no pleasure cruise, and there is no need to die, kill others, or walk blindly like sheep and turkeys.
     As a Jewish Catholic, I've participated in Southern Baptist bible school, Catholic school, synagogues (from orthodox to reform), Jewish overnight camp, twirled with Dervishes, attended Buddhist temples and sangas, Hindu temples, Wiccan ceremonies, and sat in on Satanic rituals.  I've danced naked to the moon and sung songs praising Jesus.  I've read bibles, ancient religious texts, spoken philosophically with religious leaders, honored Mother Earth, drank from the plants of the gods, and sat in quiet meditation praying for inner and outer peace.
     Through all of this some have called me "lost".  Contrarily, I believe I'm found.  Through my ability to freely seek, tasting delicious, savory, full-bodied life without fear, I have found that one truth remains: Organized religion is nothing more than a tool for controlling the masses and the self in a world of competing gods who threaten an eternity of suffering or elation, depending upon whether or not one accepts that god or set of beliefs.  True morality comes from within one's self, through seeing the suffering that exists in the world and through seeing that laws change according to the culture of the times.  A moral compass can't be worn around a neck like a crucifix.
     So, Atheists and Agnostics, fear not.  You are what you are because you had the freedom to see, first hand, the antiquated tyranny of religion.  Long live religious freedom!
   




   

Purpose?

     While preparing dinner the other night, my ten year old daughter asked what the purpose of ants is, so I explained they help fertilize plants, help with decomposition, they work the soil and are like nature's housekeepers, keeping the earth tidy. Then, she paused and asked about spiders, so I said they eat insects we don't like, like ants.  I added, "Now, mosquitos, fleas, ticks, lice and other parasites serve no purpose. They can die." 

     "Mom, what about humans? What purpose do humans serve? They pollute and kill, so what is the point of a human?" she pondered.

     "Well, the great thing about humans is that we make choices to pollute and kill." She wasn't following me.  "You see, humans have free will and consciousness.  They can choose to do wonderful, beautiful things, or they can be destructive and do awful things." I realized that my words did not answer her question, I merely described potential, not purpose. "Microbes. Bacteria."

     "What are you talking about, Mom?" Angelina leaned her head to the side and stuck her chin out, while furrows appeared in her little nose and brow.

     "Remember I told you that humans are really ninety percent microbial, that only ten percent of our cells are human?"

     "Yes, Mom, you told me this a millon times," she said, shaking her head in the affirmative.

     "Well, you know, the entire planet is microbial too.  So, what if it's all about the microbes? What if humans exist in order to serve the purpose of the microbes? Like, each of us is just a planet for the microbes that exist on us and in us."

     "Mom," she said, as her voice became slightly more bass, "that idea freaks me out. You are freakin' me out, woman!"

     I shrugged my shoulders and raised my left hand into the air as if to suggest that it's just another idea, "Hey, it's the only purpose I can think of!"

     Philosophers have, for millennia, attempted to answer the seemingly simple, yet most puzzling question life can offer-  a child can ask it, but a quadrillion minds who worked tirelessly until the end of time (if that exists) would not be able to think of one, true reason that all would accept.  There are ideas about utility and greater good, existential happiness, pleasure, responsibility and absolutes, whether free will really exists, whether free will is meant to serve in duty, that life has no meaning or purpose at all... on and on, around and around people go, trying to make sense of life.

     Last year, I wrote an article called "Space Invaders" that discussed the eerie antithesis of human existence- that we're not really human at all.  In a US News article from 2008, Matt Kane, from the National Science Foundation, said, "If all of Earth's microbes died, so would everything else, including us, but if everything else died, microbes would do just fine."

     Microbiologists have been attempting to globally map microbial genomes (this links to an interactive map, showing the current genome mapping at the Microbial Genomics Program) which seems like a daunting and impossible task since there are more microbes that exist in a spoonful of dirt than stars that exist in our galaxy... about 100 billion.  According to the article linked above, humans, depending upon where they live and how they are born (vaginally or Caesarian section), can be host to many different bacteria- so not all humans are created equal. Our biology is different and our response to internal and external environment depends wholly upon the microbial colonies that exist on us and in us.  

     In the future, perhaps science will have the perfect formula for colonizing bacteria in and on humans to allow us to reach our biological peak of perfection- nonetheless, benefit or not, the microbes reign.  

     What if our brains and all of our directed consciousness are the evolutionary response to bacteria's need for optimal survival?  If only our egos would let us believe this is true, we might be a lot happier with the result being more compassion and less suffering. After all, life is so very small and so very large- it seems like a lie when we promote the idea of the "individual".

         Now, humans, you billions of inner-planetary planets, you will learn to bow to your microbial overlords! And for the sake of all us, throw away that anti-bacterial soap.




(Image Source- http://theboldcorsicanflame.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/bold-bacterial.jpg)

Where Zombies Go To Retire

Ah, Florida.  You're really only good for a few things- beaches, Disney, alligators and the Okefenokee, and baseball.  Let's face it though, it's really the home of rednecks and people eighty percent of the way to death.  I lived in Florida as a kid, in a place called Kendall, about 30 minutes south of Miami.  I swam with old people, day in and day out, who all seemed annoyed by the presence of a five year old (I fet like they were sucking the life out of me)- oh, there were swings too, but that was it... days spent swinging and swimming.  It sounds fine to some people.

I prefer it here in the northeast and, specifically, in my home state of New Jersey, where I have beaches, am close to Atlantic City, Philadelphia, and New York for a cornucopia of well-rounded culture and dining.  I have witnessed firsthand absurdities from those transplanted from my tri-state area to Florida (where people go to die, I repeat, where people go to die) from sub shops who attempt to replicate Atlantic City's Italian bread (sorry people, it's in the water and that stays here) to people paying high prices to overnight ship our crabs.

Florida even tried to best our zombies.

I was shocked when I read about the Florida man who literally chewed off the face of another man while high on an experimental chemical called 3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone, otherwise known on the street as "bath salts".  The media and authorities attempted to falsely and irresponsibly represent the chemical as a "new LSD"- their reporting is even more dangerous than the zombie attacks.  In fact, as a side note, it's disturbing, at a minimum, to attempt the pairing of LSD to MDPV, as LSD has never been the cause of psychosis; rather, research shows it fosters spiritual and mental healing from "trip" experiences in most people.  Since MDPV is a research chemical, no one can safely say what it does.  Additionally, the chemical structure of both substances is so vastly different that to make any comparison is not only a stretch, it's a lie intended to continue the demonization of a societally beneficial substance. But enough digression because this had nothing to do with drugs, clearly, zombies are the problem.

Yesterday, in New Jersey, further evidence of the zombie apocalypse made its way into national news.  A man from Hackensack, when confronted by police, took a large and very sharp knife, began stabbing himself throughout his body, and finally, when police threatened to end his self-inflicted tirade, he did what any self-respecting zombie would do... he threw his intestines at them.  Yep, he disemboweled himself and flung his innards at the police, "Take that, coppers! You want a piece of me? You want a piece of me? Here, have some..." Even when hit with two cans of pepper spray, the New Jersey zombie kept throwing his guts at the police.

Okay, Florida, you just try to compete with New Jersey, we dare you!  Your guy? Eh. What a wimp! I mean, come on, it takes a fairly lame zombie to eat someone else's face off- in Jersey, we don't mess around, we eat our own faces off! By the way, Florida, your guy is dead while our guy hangs on by a thread, I mean, by his intestines. 

Love Through the, (Well, My) Ages

     When I was twelve, going on thirteen, as the leaves fell from the trees in 1988, our Language Arts class was asked to write a sense poem with "love" as the topic.  We were unaware that our teacher was also choosing a poem from each grade to be entered into a city-wide poetry contest.  
     I was truly the kid who used to make wishes at the wishing well and sit in the warm sun, gazing (no, really, I gazed... seriously), thinking about lovely nature, and daydreaming of spectacular adventure.  So, this was the poem my adolescent mind generated, complete with my current feelings after each line in parentheses:


Our Love
Love is a wonderful color, beyond explanation.          
(Yes, because you couldn't think of any.)
It tastes like caviar and chocolate covered cherries.         
(AND champagne wishes?? Oh my God, I'm Robin Leach.) 
Love sounds like beautiful music being played at oceanside by a goddess.          
(Is she sitting on a rock, strumming a harp, perchance?)
It smells like a garden of roses with the scent of sweet perfume.
(At least I wrote this before Bon Jovi laid on his bed of roses.)
It looks like man and woman, together, forever embracing.         
(until someone farts...)
Love makes me feel like my heart will pop out at any moment from the excitement.
(and this makes me feel like I want to vomit from all the cliches.)


     Four years later in 1992, I was on to sonnets- boy, did I love Shakespearean sonnets.  There are still a lot of filler words being used.  Notice that the material has taken on a slightly more mature tone and introduces the idea of turmoil in unrequited love.  I think I wrote this for a teacher- a major crush on the super-hottie-young-wrestling coach who was only 26 or 27 at the time... I actually remember writing this poem in the typing lab and printing it on the dot-matrix:


Unreachable Lover
This night that passed, I felt again your touch,
It was as grand as a warm summer's eve.
Your porcelain, red lips I've missed so much;
These tears, again, they will flow when you leave.
An exchange of thoughts and hearts once again;
These moments I anxiously do await;
Until then, on other days it will rain;
Perhaps, this is my unchangeable fate.
Although not true, all my dreams seem so real;
It oft hurts to wake to an empty bed;
These visions were ones I, indeed, could feel;
There must be a way all these would be dead.
Can you understand my feelings for you?
Just know one thing, all love expressed is true.


     Then, in 1995, I had my first, major break-up with a boy.  We actually still keep in touch and he agrees that he treated me miserably... though I was a stupid, little girl.  Anyway, for about a week, I hated this guy for breaking my heart:

Funny Bones Heart Splatterby *thejamcascru

Through tragedy, my hopes have gone,
No longer do I feel the pain;
A numbness in my every touch;
Now, I know no other way.
Viciously-
my mind spirals
downward, further
Until it hits the frosty sweat
days spent
future's past-
Thanks to you, I've learned this love
Thanks to you, I feel no pain,
And so to you, a cheery toast,
"Anguish and sorrow will here remain
with you."
The candle drips,
my spirit rips;
Fills up with a shuddering hurt;
Screams and blood,
Confusion, madness,
Black tears-
Isolation;
And it's all thanks to you.


No venom, angst, or insanity there, kids. So, I began to lighten up a little when I, again, found love in 1996:


I wake in the morning
feeling your gentle kiss
pressing my lips--
I smile
my spirit, again, knows
joy
freedom to soar
through eternity with hearts
open
souls united
wishes granted--
a spirit so high
birds cannot follow
but together we climb
together in peace
harmony--
knowing love
seeing beauty in others'
eyes
learning that existence
is enough to love
to give love
to forever
love.


     Then, I was married and in 1999, I gave birth to my first child and "Love" took on a whole new meaning:

Julia Love

My bright angel baby--

shimmering happiness

exploding into stars

shooting across the sky,

falling upon wide eyes,

transforming into dreams.

Kiss a delicate cheek--

warmth of a thousand suns

penetrate, melt the soul,

lift it to the heavens

delivering to God--

a universe of love.

    Finally, I began writing about universal love- making love to the entire quantum universe- immersing, superimposing, all of me into and onto all of it.  No longer limited by earthly love, I decided to branch out and expand the definition:

Body Electric

Turn on my Body Electric,

come-- brush against my quarks,

a chemistry explosively 

revealed after dark.

I wish to be your lightning rod,

come ZAP! me in delight,

come in, explore, there's so much more,

find vision without sight.

So long, I've searched through galaxies,

and foraged through a maze

of lifeless, empty energy

forced stunted by a haze.

Get warped, consume my juicy space,

take journeys in my mind,

wrap warm lips around every

particle you can find. 


     I continue to write love poems- though, likely, they will continue to reflect my love of Nature.  I haven't changed from the little girl who used to lay in the grass and search for bugs, cloud watch, and smell all the neighbor's tulips and daffodils on the way to school in the springtime- so much that she'd be late for 1st grade almost every day.  
     In fact, all this daydreaming and reminiscing about love has occupied my time all day today...  

     










     

A Day of Remembrance

     For people living in the United States, today, December 7, marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack on a U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in 1941 which sparked the blaze that announced the U.S. decision to enter into World War II.  Both my father and maternal grandfather fought in WWII in the U.S. Army- my grandfather in Okinawa and my father in the Burmese jungle with Merrill's Marauders where he received a Silver Star and a Purple Heart for taking schrapnel in his leg.  Before he died in July 2002, sometime while I was in high school, I think, he gave me his Purple Heart in an old, hinged and cracked, plastic display box.  For me, today also marks the one-year anniversary of our house fire.
     At about 3pm, I arrived home from spending a lovely afternoon with my mother.  We had our hair done together at our favorite salon, she a color touch-up and me, a great cut by the only person I will ever trust my hair to again, Anthi (call her, she's amazingly talented). Easing slowly down the winding street on the way to my house which sits nearly a mile back off the main road, I spotted my best neighbor waving to me from her driveway, and as I peered to the right, there was my next door neighbor standing between our yards also waving to me.  Smiling, thinking how fortunate I am to be close to such wonderful people, I pulled into my driveway, eager to chat with my older and ever-wiser neighbor ladies.  "Hey guys!"
     "Gaby, your house is on fire!" My neighbor yelled from across the street, "Your house is on fire, you can't go in..."
     "...You can't go in, Gaby, you can't go in the house!" my next door neighbor cried, entering into the yelling like singing a round of "Row, Row, Row, Your Boat".
     "What? What? My house is on fire? Where?"
     "The front, near the front- Gaby, you can't go in.  The fire company is on its way! Listen Gaby, listen, can you hear the sirens? They're coming now, Gaby!" My across-the-street neighbor said.
     I noticed that a man was also there working as a general contractor across the street, in the house directly across from mine.  Running over to the front door, I could see smoke in the wall to the right of the door and between the large bay window.  It didn't seem very bad and my instinct was to open the front door, but my neighbors and the man were yelling that the house could explode, which only made me more confused.  It was all happening so quickly and I just couldn't process the totality of the moment, it was fragmented and weird.  "Did you use my hose and try to wet the house?"
     "No, we wanted to, but it's electrical, you can't wet it, you'll electrocute yourself!" one of the ladies said.
     "Fuck it," I thought, "I'm not going to die, not today."  My house is wood and I didn't care about the possibility of my house burning down and being electrocuted.  I just thought that it made sense to wet the wood.  The fire had already burned a hole in the lower part of the wall and was working its way up, so I sprayed the outside of the house and jammed the hose between the wall for a split second, just enough time to dampen it, but not long enough to stand around and get zapped.  I ran to my neighbors who were standing across the street as sirens roared closer.  I was in a panic and all of this that I've described only happened in a matter of about 2 minutes.  And then, I realized, "My cats! My cats! The bird! They're in the house, they're in the house!"
     "No, Gaby, you can't go in the house!"
     I don't know what took me so long to remember the pets, but at that moment, I spotted a state police cruiser coming up the street and I panicked, knowing that I had to act, because once he parked, he would have prevented me from going near the house.  So, I did what I think anyone would have done, I ran toward the house.
     "Gaby, no!" They told me for what seemed to the 1000th time.
     I charged past all of them and looked to the right at the young trooper pulling up, I remember his face well and met his eyes in a way that said, "I'm going in to that house.  Yes, I see you and I don't care, because you are going to prevent me from saving part of my family."
    Running around the left side of the house, I shuffled for my key to the back door.  There were too many keys and I was wasting precious time. Trying two keys, I gave up, realizing that there was no more time to get it wrong.  So, I used the outer side of my right fist to smash through the door glass, reach in, and unlock the deadbolt.  "Cats! Cats!" I prayed that Fudder, the beautiful Lynx Point/Turkish Van/orange Tabby was outside, playing in the woods, which he loves doing.  He prefers being outside, except in the very cold weather, but I've seen him trek through ten inches of snow.  He has very long legs, a thick coat, and his body is muscular and sleek- he's fast and graceful when he runs.  He's bright for a cat, pays attention to the world around him, making certain that everything is copacetic.
     The smoke billowed, thick, black smoke was throughout the house.  I had no idea it was so bad.  I also didn't realize, despite all my elementary school training, that there was just no oxygen in smoke, at least not enough to safely breathe.  A cat cried, it was Duchess, the chunky, gray, silky kitty and she sounded horrible, like wailing- a deep, awful ouch sounding cry.  I yelled for her to come, but she was too afraid to move.  So, peering in, I spotted her in the corner of the kitchen near the window.  She was pressed against the glass.  She was smart enough to know where the exit is and got as far as she could, she wasn't going back in to run to the door.  I ran in and accidentally took a breath, "Uh!"  The smoke stung my chest and throat instantly, choking me.  Duchess kept wailing, mrrroooowwwwww, mrrroooowwwwww.  I grabbed her by the scruff with my left hand to get a grip on the sixteen pound cat and put my right hand under her legs to scoop her up into my arms and I dashed out of the house.  I tried yelling for Marlin, the more fluff than meat, squishy, orange Tabby who has an oral fixation and licks everything and everyone.  I was most worried about him, because he is an aloof and lazy fellow who prefers sleeping in the comfort of my bed to the outdoors and I knew he was likely in my room hiding, too afraid to come out.  Then, there was Kaka, my nine year old daughter's cockatiel who hates all of us because we are nice to the cats and it makes no good sense to him.  I figured he would be okay, as her bedroom door was always kept closed.
     I said goodbye to my house and walked back around the side to see the trooper walking toward me.  "That's some cut you have, " he said, "Let's go have that looked at, okay?"  I mumbled something incoherent and he put his arm around me.
     I looked down at my right hand and saw there was bright, red blood covering the sleeve of my snow white ski jacket, bright green shirt, and could see drops of blood on my jeans and Ugg boots, "Shit, I had no idea I cut myself.  But my house and my pets, there is a cat, maybe two in the house and a bird in the bedroom that's in the back bedroom with the closed door!"
     "I'll let them know."  He delivered me to a waiting ambulance and in the five minutes that passed, there were two fire companies, five police cars, and a neighborhood full of people looking on.
     Not knowing if I'd have a home to come back to, I said goodbye to all of my stuff in a moment.  I thought that there was nothing I could do except pray to the universe or to the firemen, or to God, or whomever could help to please save my house. The EMTs took one look at my hand and I knew from their reactions that it wasn't good.  "Oooh, that's gonna need more than stitches."  They laid me back, but I refused and called people while they wrapped my hand in a mountain of gauze.  Just then, the school bus pulled up behind all of the emergency vehicles- my girls were home from school.  I sprang to my feet, crying out for the kids.  My neighbor came over and said she'd take care of them until one of our family members arrived.  I felt somewhat relieved, but I wanted to cry.

At the hospital with a fresh wound

     One of the EMTs, an older woman in her early 50s, asked me to sit back so she could administer oxygen.  The ambulance was old, but the ride was free, thanks to our amazing, tiny community of volunteers.  I was cold and shivering, they said I was in shock and had smoke inhalation.  They brought me to an urgent care center where the attending doctor consulted a hand surgeon at a larger hospital via phone.  I heard her tell him that I had no nerve damage or tendon damage, but that I had severed an artery that they had to cauterize.  They stitched me and sent me on my way with an appointment to see the hand surgeon.

Zorro left his mark, five days post-op

     When I arrived home, finally at around nine p.m., the night darkness was met with a giant hole in the front of the house the size of a door, but my house was there and it was fairly habitable.  The front door was open and my family had a giant shop vacuum sucking up mud off of our laminated floors.  I remember passing my brand new, beautiful, huge, cream and baby blue Aubusson-style wool carpet in the driveway, partially rolled and soaking wet on the open end and thinking it was likely ruined.  I wanted to go back to the hospital rather than walk into that disaster.  The kids were still at the neighbor's house and I asked about the cats and bird, "Kaka, Fudder and Duchess are all okay."
     "Well, where's Marlin?" I said, desperately.  I was tired of crying and didn't think I could handle anymore upset for one day.
     "We can't find him."
     I immediately began searching the house.  "Marlin! Marlin!"  I ran into my room and dove under the bed, not caring about my hand being in excruciating pain and wrapped like a mummy.  There was Marlin, cowering behind storage boxes.  He wedged himself in and was stiff with fear.  Marlin and Fudder were rescue kitties, Fudder was a kitten and doesn't recall his homeless days, but Marlin was almost two and spent nearly three months cooped up in a cage at the Humane Society.  When we adopted him, he had forgotten how to jump and was fearful and shy.  We spent a long time getting him over his fears, and in a flash, all of his trauma was remembered and I had to pry him from under the bed where he lay, burying his face in my arms.
     Two days later, I went to the surgeon for consultation.  Through a battery tests, he determined that I required hand surgery, as I had, in fact, severed a nerve and was unable to feel any sensation on my little finger.  He loved the fact that I ran in to save the animals and thought it made for a great story, seeing his face in my mind still makes me laugh.  So a few days later, on the 15TH of December, I went in to a little outpatient surgical center for nerve repair.  X marked the spot and was signed by the surgeon to indicate that we'd discussed that this was the right hand.
     Being guided into the operating room by a warm and welcoming nurse, I entered the icy room with where the walls, floors, and high-tech equipment made me feel like I was on some other planet in the future between the stainless steel and cool color scheme.  Laying down on the table, I had to stretch my arm perpendicular to my body, placing it on a rest, palm-side up.  My left arm was being prepped for anesthesia.  My doctor was peering into the neatest-looking microscope I had ever seen.  He was noticeably more serious than when we met and even a half-hour prior in pre-op, he was still pretty mellow and jokey.  He looked away from the scope, glancing over at me, and said hello with a nod.  I was very nervous, which is not unusual, as I'm kind of a nervous person in general.  The nurse saw me shivering and brought me a toasty, warm blanket from a smaller room.  The anesthesiologist entered reminding me of Ken Kesey and making me feel a little better, in an odd way.  He let the anesthesia begin dripping and warned me that I'd feel a sting.  It wasn't a sting, it was like someone pouring molten steel into my vein.  The pain was greater than my injured hand was experiencing and I yelled while wincing, "Ahhhh!"  Within ten seconds, I was out.
     The surgery was to take about an hour, but instead, it was a two-and-a-half hour procedure.  "Gabrielle, Gabrielle..."  I opened my eyes and shut them again, "Gabrielle, not in my wildest dreams did I expect to see what I saw when I was able to take a look," the surgeon said, as my glazed eyes tried desperately to stay open and focus.  I really hate the feeling of coming out of general anesthesia, it's like being awakened from the dead- all the senses come flooding like calm water whose dam has been lifted.  I just wanted to sleep.  He continued, "So, the surgery took a little longer than expected because I also had to repair your tendon.  I did not expect to see what I saw which was that about ninety percent of the tendon was severed."  I looked on with my eyes crossing back and forth into my head with my ear resting on my left shoulder.  "The tendon is made of these tiny, little pieces that are like super-thin leaves that all connect together.  Yours was being held by one leaf.  If it had completely gone, it would have meant a whole different ball game.  You're very lucky, I can't believe it, it's just amazing."

     A week later, after dealing with managing a soft cast, I went back to be fitted with a splint made from hydrothermal plastic that started out in flexible sheets that looked like smooth cardboard, but which softened to a thick taffy consistency upon heating in water.  Once heated, it was highly pliant and could be shaped and molded in any fashion.  Once air dried in a matter of minutes, the soft material hardens into a plastic shell like magic.  The splint was hinged with metal grommets at the wrist bone, covering the top of my hand to the tips of my fingers with the larger piece extending the length of my forearm.  My hand was positioned so that my wrist was bent at the natural bend with my fingers pointing downward.  I felt like Iron Man.

     On the 4TH of January, I returned to the doctor and had my stitches removed.  Using tweezers, the doc peeled away the Zorro-shaped scab in one, painless piece revealing new, pink, tender skin.
     Tired of the plain, bland plastic splint, I asked the kids if they'd cheer it up and paint it.  My younger daughter painted hearts and rainbows while her older sister wittingly painted the letters O-Z-Z-Y across the place where my knuckles rested, mimicking tattoos that one might see on a burly biker.  It was terrific and completely cheered me up.  For several months after, I proudly brandished my colorful splint.

     Immediately following surgery, I entered into hand therapy and there I remained, going two and three times a week until I was finally discharged in May of 2011.  It was grueling and was unlike the sports therapy of which I was accustomed from my days playing college tennis with delightful massage, cute sports medicine majors stretching my lower back and hot tubs.  This hurt and it was work.  I had to learn to use my left hand for everything, writing was a tortuous feat and forget about going to the bathroom, what a nightmare.  For weeks, I stayed hopped-up on oxycodone, Percocet, because the pain was not manageable with my preferred choice of ibuprofen.  Narcotics are horrible, nasty demons and I have refused pain medicine through out my life because of my aversion to opiates.  They made me feel physically nauseous and emotionally detached.  I stayed in bed most of the time in a drug-induced slump of depression.  After five weeks of drugs and after beginning to need to take the Percocet, they no longer knocked me out; in fact, I would feel stoned and energized.  That scared me, so I went cold turkey and put the garbage away for good. 

     My hand, at first, was stiff from spending two months in a downward-facing position.  I was unable to extend my wrist upward and could neither straighten nor bend my fingers any more than the position in which they'd been kept.  Over time and after many therapy days of crying tears of frustration and pain, I regained nearly all the feeling and movement in my hand.  Apparently, the flexor tendon and small finger surgery, according to my doctor, is one of the most difficult surgeries from which to recover.  The only part of my pinky I can't feel is the outer corner of the finger tip, remarkable, since I had no feeling at all.

     It took a long time for the smell of smoke to vanish from the house and all our belongings.  While the pain was new, I spent weeks washing every clothing item and bed linen.  We scrubbed the walls and ceilings and to my joy, we were able to salvage the carpet.  A couple steam cleaning sessions later and it was brand new again.  It's been a slow recovery for the house, as we were uninsured and have had to do the work ourselves with the constant reminder of the fire.  There's still much to do, even a year later, but miraculously, all we lost was a chair.  This is how my hand looks today:

     It was odd waking this morning and realizing that today marked a day that will live infamously for my family and I.  Typically, I'm not one for anniversaries or sentiment, but this was different somehow.  The day triggered all kinds of horrible feelings of anxiety that I had since put behind me.  The kids were oblivious and I never let on that the day was anything other than Pearl Harbor Day, which incidentally, their teachers did not mention.  
     Tomorrow, my mind will begin to calm itself and writing has probably been therapeutic, as I've been meaning to write about it for sometime, I just wasn't yet able to bring myself to the task of regurgitating events and emotions.  For a moment this morning, I felt a flood of emotion and in writing this piece, I've noticed how much sadness and fear still lingers within me.  It isn't fear of losing my stuff that lingers, it's how lucky we all are to still have a home and our lives- the anxiety comes from the innumerable "what ifs", the immeasurable possibilities that exist in any one moment...
     Like Schrödinger's cat, I believe an outcome is determined by the perceiver- that all possibilities exist, but it's a person's thoughts that create individual reality, internally within the self as well as externally in the physical world around us.  So it's vital that my mind discipline itself, thinking of the positive and releasing Fear.
     The day of remembrance doesn't have to be filled with sorrow, it's only I who has decided to make that one moment or combination of moments more important than any other moment and that just seems illogical and foolish.
     So, on this day of remembrance, I'm shooting for dementia at best, but I'll settle for denial... what, what fire? what surgery? I even bought a pair of rose-colored sunglasses.  The world looks so much nicer when peering through them.