Monday, November 24, 2014

Travel Plans

It is decided. In a week I am travelling to California to spend some time with my sister. I had good conversations, both with her and with my younger brother this weekend. She looks good, sounds optimistic. She is out of the hospital, back home in California, in the environment that she loves. She does need family help and support though and my brother and I will be taking turns giving her that.  I am so grateful that I can go there now, before things "get serious", as my brother puts it. 

Part of what my brother has been doing and what will be my job as well is keeping the health care ball rolling, which is in itself a major undertaking. It is something that I do all the time at work: checking with my patients to see if things are moving along, and if they seem to have ground to a halt get them started again. But I expect it to be a challenge, doing it as a family member in a country that doesn't have uniform systems in place.

The past weeks as I have been waiting - waiting to hear news, waiting to connect with her -  I have become more and more clear that I want to go see her now. I can always go back later - in fact I probably will, maybe a couple of times. And just in case I got all my christmas shopping and baking out of the way while I was waiting. 

But there is a lot to organize: time off work and care for my critters being most important. At first I thought I would just take Lucy with me, but for one thing it turns out to be outrageously expensive - easily as much as having her in a kennel for 2 weeks, and then there is the thought of her being cooped up in a crate for 17 to 19 hours. So I decided to scrap that idea, and have arranged for a very nice kennel for 10 days, after which my ex will bring her to my oldest daughter who will keep her til I come back. As for the cats,  I already brought one of them to my oldest son last weekend when my daughter and I went to Trondheim to celebrate a vegan thanksgiving with him and his partner. My ex and my neighbor will take turns taking care of the other 2 cats in my home. Luckily the farm where I live needs my ex to work so that he has some reason to be here. But I am so grateful for my neighbor, my ex, my kids - especially my oldest daughter, for all their help and support, and for my supervisor at work who made 6 shifts go away. I have 6 shifts during the time I am to be away and she has given me compassionate leave for 4 of them, and is letting me make up the other 2 at a later time. 

One tricky thing is how to get to the airport. There is no train early enough, but I can take the airport bus at 3:30. Except how to get to the bus station? My neighbor and I usually drive each other to the bus or train when one of us is travelling, and in fact I will be taking her to the bus on thursday, however she isn't coming back until later on the morning of my departure. We finally figured out that if I leave my car at the busstop then she can drive it home when she arrives. Good solution! So slowly but surely everything has been falling into place today. 

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Do Less (and achieve more?)

I've been following a blog that has been running a series on doing less. I always have a to do list that is much longer than is realistic to fit into the day. The idea of having "nothing to do" stresses me beyond belief, as does the thought of all the things I want to do but can't get to. :P

I KNOW that I need to practice stillness and listening. This blog even has some practical tips which I intend to try out. Such as drinking my tea while staring out the window. This is not one of the tips from the blog, but lately when I walk the dog, I find myself succumbing to the urge to just lie down in the moss, or sit with my back against a tree and stare at the sky...

Another suggestion is sitting with uncomfortable feelings. My sister is very very sick and she is in a time zone 9 hours different from mine. This situation is overwhelming and frustrating and brings up all kinds of uncomfortable feelings: feelings of (anticipated) loss, irrasjonal feelings of rejection, envy and jealousy of the people who get to spend time with my sister everyday.  Feelings it is not easy to live with, even to admit to having. Dealing with  uncomfortable feelings reminds me being pregnant and nursing. Even though I didn't seem to be doing anything, the state itself demanded a lot of my energy and I needed more sleep and had less energy. That is how grieving, dreading, worrying and reaching out but not being able to connect is affecting me. It takes an awful lot of energy.

And one of the things I have been inspired to do because of this "do less" blog series is to cut back on the amount of stuff I am trying to fit into my day, which included a number of spiritual practices. I have cut back to 2 practices: a daily yoga practice and a chakra cleanse meditation - but am doing these religiously. Other than that I am trying to cut myself some slack and not demand so incredibly much of myself. I have stopped taking on extra shifts, and I need to give myself permission to sleep more, and even to escape into the world of books and movies/tv-series and mindless puzzles now and then without beating myself up about it.

I don't know about sitting with uncomfortable feelings. I think it is necesary to acknowledge them, and maybe tapp on them. But what I really want to do is focus on the unconditional love that I also have for my sister, on the happy memories thoughout the years, the desire to comfort and support her in what is most important to her. And that seems to be her teaching and her music. This may seem a strange way to do it, but my sister is a gifted educator and enthusiastic musician  and so I have been listening to and singing along to "The Sound of Music" and "Mary Poppins", as a way to connect with her, when the 9 hour time difference and our respective proffessional commitments make it impossible to connect in person.