The Camera Shy Journal

Today is the first Saturday in December and traditionally the day of the Oak Ridge Christmas parade. I love parades (’cause in general, I’m a dork), and all day yesterday I mentally prepared myself to brave an hour of sub-freezing morning temperatures with the kids:

• Coats? Check.
• Hats? Hoods on coats? Check.
• Gloves? Check? Well, a pair for the little guy. The others know how to utilize pockets. So yeah, check.

Anyway, last night I figured that I ought to double check what time it was to begin, so I hopped on over to the Chamber of Commerce’s website…only to find that the Christmas parade is not this morning, but Saturday the 13th, and at night! The kids will be with James next weekend…so…what do I do?

…

I feel like I’m floundering around this season, flailing about trying to find the Christmas spirit. The want is there, but I keep getting stuck. When I saw that the parade was on a different day and time, it really struck me that without the framework of that traditional day and time, I just didn’t know what to do. This funny little moment of panic set in, and I just felt like I was stuck.

I think it’s the same way with Christmas in general this year. The traditions that were built over the past ten years are no longer there. Last year, I knew just what to do at Christmas time, because that’s how I had done it the year before, and the year before that, and so on.

Now, everything is new and different. I’m in a new and somewhat unfamiliar house, there are new family dynamics still sorting themselves out, and I’m still learning to adjust to having the kids around only half the time. And without the framework of tradition…I’m just at a loss of what to do.

I think my blasted anxiety plays into this as well, and perhaps some unrealistic expectations of what Christmas should be like. Jason brought up a good point last night: should I even be feeling the Christmas spirit yet — when Christmas itself is still weeks away?

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So, no Christmas parade this morning. Instead, a beautiful and frosty sunrise. Wingnut waking up at 6:04 and October still asleep at 8:13. Lilo and Stitch playing in the living room. A cup of coffee with chocolate syrup because we’re out of milk. A quiet kind of calm as I think about building new traditions and learning not to rely so heavily on frameworks.

I drove down to the Anderson County Courthouse this morning and filed a Complaint for Divorce.

My divorce isn’t something I’ve acknowledged directly on Camera Shy or the Journal; it’s not a secret, or something to be hidden, but it’s also not something that I’ve felt a huge need to broadcast over the internet. It’s a private, personal matter — but also something that affects me and my family in apparent, public ways. It’s the whole Camera/Shy thing all over again.

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I took this self-portrait earlier this afternoon in the kitchen of No Name New House, which James has now coined The Westlook.  I haven’t lived at the Westlook since July, when James and I officially separated.  You know, Westlook is a nice house, but it’s never really been my house, my home.

But those lovely vinyl tiles do make for a good background for self-portraits.  : )

…

Hmmm…not quite sure how to wrap up this post…so, I’ll just wrap it up.

We’ve now been living at the new house for nearly two months. It still doesn’t have a name…I kind of like calling it No Name New House, but I imagine that James will come up with something better.

We lived a year or so in Cemestos Gardens before settling on its name. I remember laughing about it, the absurdity of naming our 1,144 square foot house like it was some grand estate. Hell, who am I kidding? It was, and is, a grand estate.

The story of Cemestos Gardens is wrapped up in the story of my brother. I can’t think about that house without thinking of him.

My mom bought the house in 1997 with money she inherited from her mother. She already had a house in Clinton; this was her fallback if anything were to ever happen. The house needed an occupant, and my brother Justin needed a place to stay. At some point in 1997, Justin, 23, moved in.

I went to visit him once. I hadn’t spent much time in Oak Ridge and was totally confused by the roads. I was a little confused by the house, too, as it wasn’t completely apparent which door was the front and which one was the back. I knocked, but he was soundly asleep and didn’t answer.

In November, 1997, I found out I was pregnant. I was barely 20; James and I had been dating just a month. I really remember so little of that time…memories that I would like to be crisp and sharp are fuzzy, distant, blurred.

But not all of them. Some memories are sharp, and crisp, and sometimes feel as fresh as they had just happened.

On June 30, 1998, I sat, 8 months pregnant, with James on my old brown couch in my apartment in Fort Sanders. I had treated myself to cable and we were watching X-Files reruns on FX. The loud knock on the door made both of us jump. I was surprised to find my mom and step-dad at the door – almost a pleasant, confused surprise for the first moment, and then the dull instinct of something is wrong fell over me.

“Justin is dead,” my mom said. I very distinctly remember not understanding her, like she was speaking a foreign language. It just didn’t compute. I don’t think that it computed for a very long time; sometimes it still doesn’t compute.

Justin had been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age 12. He had a few scares over the years, and didn’t do the best job of maintaining his disease, but for the most part he was able to stay healthy. But not this time.

Who knows what really happened? He was at a party the night before. Perhaps he had a little too much to drink and fell asleep before he was able to eat a blood-sugar sustaining snack. Maybe he simply miscalculated – thought that he could make it until morning without eating. We’ll never know. Whatever the circumstances, he went into insulin shock early in the morning of June 30 and died in his bedroom, the corner bedroom of Cemestos Gardens.

His funeral was on July 9 at the Chapel on the Hill. I sat, still 8 months pregnant, and thought about my mom, who was 9 months pregnant with me when her father died. She told me that everyone worried she would go into labor at his funeral. She didn’t, and I was born 10 days later.

October waited a bit longer than that, and was born on August 6. I had moved out of my apartment a month prior, and James, October and I were squatting at my mom’s house in Clinton.

We needed a place to stay, and once again the Cemestos house needed an occupant. We moved in on July 26. My mom pointed out some iris stalks in the front flowerbed by the steps to the sidewalk. “Justin planted those,” she said. “Take care of them.”

They bloom year after year without much tending. I divided them once and gave out some to James’ coworkers. I lazily left a few out back, where they took root. Year after year, flower gardens. Justin’s gardens. Cemestos Gardens.

The day before we moved to No Name New House, I dug up several to bring along. Spotz and Lugnut volunteered to help plant them. Working together in the late spring sunshine, we dug holes, got dirty and successfully planted 9 or 10 irises. They’re looking a little shocked from the move, but they’ll bounce back. Irises are very hardy.

…

It’s been 10 years since Justin died, and the first year that I haven’t been in Cemestos Gardens on the anniversary. It makes for a little bit of melancholy on this bright Monday morning.

California!

October left this morning on her grand California adventure.  James and October rolled out of here at 4:08 this morning to catch her 6:00 flight.  Presently, she’s in Atlanta and will soon hop another flight to Los Angeles, where she’ll meet up with my dad.

This trip has been in the works for about 3 years.  October was so excited and chatty this morning she could hardly contain herself.  I’m actually not very nervous or anxious about her travels.  She’s got a good head on her shoulders, and I think the opportunity to do something like this without parents hovering around is fantastic.

This is an alternate post to the Dark Matter picture:

It was originally going to be called Guarded, before I remembered my favorite Andrew Bird song and gasped aloud at its relevance.  If you haven’t watched the video, you should.

But Guarded still works.  I am a very guarded person.  I let people see the shadow, but not the self that makes the shadow.  What kind of consequences does that have?  What connections get lost, because I am constantly working to hide anything remotely emotional, vulnerable, negative?

Even this post feels like it comes from my head, not from between my sides.  Eeek.  I’m trying.

Is it in your head or between your sides?

Last night’s enormous and brilliantly colored clouds were fantastic; of course, when I saw them, the first thing I did was grab the camera and curse myself for having the wrong lens attached (James ran inside to grab the right one - thanks!).
I was delighted this morning to wake up and find the same clouds (or same system, at least) pictured by other photographers in the area.  I dunno, it made me feel all sentimental and earnest and ‘oh look, the same thing experienced by different people.’  It made me feel a little fluffy inside.  Hee.

October, Spotz and Lugnut are spending the week up the James’ parents’ house. I was hoping for a nice quiet week with little mellow Wingnut.
Ha.
Wing evidently misses them terribly and is channeling their absent energy. Yesterday, he kept body-slamming me (all 24 pounds of him - ouch!). Whenever I put him in the car seat, he starts blowing very loud raspberries (…on second thought, no…he’s spitting). He screeches, squawks, snarls. Refuses to nap. Climbs up and pounds on my laptop (actually, he does that all the time…sorry, work).
It may be that he does these things when the kids are here, but that it’s more noticeable in the quiet. Or, it could be that he’s in the spotlight and feels more comfortable asserting himself. Still yet, it could be that he’s 17 months old, which is essentially 2 years old in my book.
We’ve been having fun, though. Think I may try to get him out of the house a bit today.

I’m not into politics all that much, but I love watching Meet the Press. Sundays, while Bos and the kids would scoot off to church, I would stay home and get work done around the house and watch Meet the Press. Sometimes, I might be interested in some of the guests on the show, or the topics covered. But mostly, I just liked watching Tim Russert. I loved hearing him read the excerpts, ask the tough questions. I loved how he was able to mix in a little bit of humor when needed. It was joyful to watch him — like he was just meant to do that job.

Needless to say, I was shocked and devastated yesterday when I learned that he died. Sundays just won’t be the same anymore.