Vomit

Nausea and vomiting have been my constant companions. I loathe their excessive diligence. Years ago I would never have imagined getting to the point where vomiting became second nature. More, a relief.

I'm not anorexic or bulimic, nor have I ever been. Instead, I got sick with something no doctor could give a name, let alone a definition or explanation. Treatment wasn't even a consideration. How can you treat what you don't know? Symptoms were alleviated as well as possible but nothing brought answers.

If you've never experienced intense, prolonged nausea and vomiting, there's no way to help you understand that horror. In pregnancy, many women have to deal with something similar, but in the end they are rewarded with a joyful child. I got more vomiting.

Day in, night out there was nausea so severe I couldn’t even sleep, let alone eat or read or work—even after taking anti-nausea medication. I drank water or Gatorade whenever I could, just to stay hydrated, but that didn’t stop the vomiting. Often, I wouldn’t have anything in my stomach other than water, and so that was all that would come up. When the water was gone, it would be dry heaves. Days and weeks and months of it.

We ruled out everything imaginable in every way possible. I was pricked and poked and prodded and pinched till I was ready to scream for the lack of answers.

After three months of vomiting everyday, several times a day, and being prostrate with spirit-crushing nausea, the vomiting ceased. For two months it seemed as though this anomaly had been just that—something bizarre and unexplainable, but soon gone. Hah.

We didn’t have an answer for those past months, but I felt fine, so I didn't complain. I went back to work after months of on-again-off-again medical leave.

Two months went by. The vomiting started again.

I knew how it felt then, and how horrible it was to be hunched over a bowl or bucket or toilet for hours a day. I feared it would be just as awful as the first time, so I started back to the doctor’s office, draining my health, my strength, my will, and my bank account.

Then one night, in tears of frustration and anger, I scoured the internet to find something, anything, to explain what was wrong with me. A random Google search of “weird vomiting disease” linked to a page discussing Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome. I'd found it.

Some people go through cycles of vomiting. Most frequently it affects children, who are more prone to frequent bouts of short duration (2–3 days, about a dozen or more times a year). For a time doctors didn’t think adults could have it, but now they’re realizing that some go through episodes of longer duration but less frequency (up to three weeks, three or four times a year).

No one knows why. There is no cure. There isn’t even a common therapy or medication or treatment. Some doctors don’t even know it exists.

Even more strange, it is sometimes linked to abdominal migraines, which is how my doctor began treating it. Prevent the migraines, prevent the vomiting. After another month, the vomiting stopped. The intense nausea stopped shortly after, and even minor nausea lost its potency.

After six months with sometimes mild nausea but without any vomiting, I decided to quit taking the migraine medication. If I could live without the interminable need for medication, I'd gladly take it. And so commenced a week from heck. Not hell, not this time. Migraines and nausea, but not nearly anything severe enough to equate to the purgatory I'd already passed through.

Why do I tell this story? Because I gained strength and courage from vomit. I lost so many things in the months I couldn't work or eat or sleep. (Except weight. A cruel twist of fate put my body into starvation mode so I couldn't lose some of the excess pounds I carried.) Those losses showed that I could live with so little in the way of money and expensive food and clothes, and objects in general. I didn't need them.

Nor did I need the things Americans generally consider indispensable: big house, fancy car, high-paying 9–5 job, 401(k). Not having those things didn't make my life miserable. Illness did that. If I could survive and be relatively happy in a situation like that . . . well, I could survive anything. Taking risks and the possibility of failure didn't seem nearly as daunting as they had before.

Nausea spared me a lifetime of unexpressed longing. If the illness weren't quite so horrible, I might say I was grateful for it. But let's not get carried away.

Reckless

There are times when anything is better than sanity. Times like now.

For years I did as conventional wisdom said:

1. Be a good girl.
2. Be coy but inviting to the opposite sex.
3. Don't get married too young.
4. Go to college.
5. Get a respectable degree.
6. Get a good job with a steady paycheck and benefits.
7. Buy a reliable car.
8. Save for the future.

That has gotten me:

1. A rather boring life.
2. No idea how to flirt or date.
3. Lifelong spinsterhood.
4. Educated without much partying.
5. A paper touting my now-obsolete journalism degree.
6. A traditional, boring job that fell apart the moment I got sick.
7. A decent car that I'd much rather sell.
8. In debt.

No, my life isn't bad, horrible, or utterly devastating. But neither am I complete. A whole, fulfilled individual without residual questions or what-ifs floating through the air taunting me as I try to sleep.

And so, my friends, I propose this: I will embezzle imprudence from all of the lively, fun, adventurous, and slightly crazy people I've always wanted to become. I'll take a bit of reckless courage from the rock climber. Some bravada from the loungers on nude beaches. Small helpings of willful disregard for rules from schemers. More than a touch of zen from pot-smoking liberals. All of these little pieces, I'll add to my burgeoning courage to be the person I've always longed to be.

You may worry that with such examples, I'll be dancing too close to danger. Don't worry. I'm old enough to not be stupid and completely reckless. I'm also old enough to know that a life half lived is no life at all.

Many things have aggregated my growing discontent with the status quo, the way it's "supposed to be." I'll share some of those, as well as document my irresponsible actions as I throw a comfortable, convenient, and safe life away. Safety is another way of saying you've given into fear. I'm tired of being safe.

Down with boring stuff!

I'm reorganizing my life. Literally. That includes my blogging. So be prepared for all kinds of who knows what. I don't know what, either.

Also, I probably shouldn't redo a website or post to the blog when I'm sleep deprived. Me = slaphappy

I belong to Fire Petal Books

For any of the following to make sense, you must read this post on belonging by Molly O'Neill. Go now. I'll wait until you get back.

Thinking about my belonging to something, I realize there are two that immediately strike me. The first is my home state of Utah. Most people don't realize how incredibly beautiful it is here. Often I don't either, at least until
I move away for a few months or years. Then I start to ache for my mountains. Actually, I get lost without them. How else am I supposed to know which way is east?

And in almost striking contrast, farther south along the highway are the glorious red deserts of central and southern Utah. The first morning of waking up, bundling up in sweatshirts and blankets as the sun just begins to rise, and peeking my head outside the tent to a vista of absolute perfection is something I can only describe as spiritual.

Those places have been my home for longer than my memories trace back. They are my birthplace and most likely my final resting place. Though I always long to see new places, I cannot leave my home for long.

In the past few weeks, though, I've begun building a home within that home. This home is largely empty now, though the walls shine with brilliant colors of various hues, still damp from the recent application of paint. Piece by piece, that space will be filled with chairs and shelves, followed soon after by books. Lots and lots of books. The best kinds of books, too. Those especially for kids and teens.

The walls are still bare and I've yet to have boxes of books cross the threshold, but that place is mine. It has already claimed me. Every morning I unlock the door, flick on the lights and open the blinds. Then I see it, and it welcomes me. I could spend hours lying on that floor, looking up at the gorgeous walls, noticing each piece as it finds a place.

Soon enough, this store will claim children as well, and teens and mothers and fathers and anyone who wants a place to read and laugh and live.

A friend commented the other day on how this store is me, that it is taking on my personality and becoming part of myself. I daresay she's right. I hope she's right, because that way I can give the best part of myself to others, to give them love and belonging when they may not know how to find it anywhere else.

I belong there because it is part of me, and I am part of it. I can't imagine a greater gift in life.

Michelle who belongs to Fire Petal Books

Quote of the Day

"In a world where it is increasingly possible to seclude yourself in a hive with fellow creatures who buzz the way you do, bookstores, like libraries and newspapers, are among the few places where a variety of ideas and opinions can jostle together for your attention. That tolerance of perspectives, including contradictory ones, isn't a marketing strategy for those institutions. It's part of their DNA. It's why they exist."

—Jim Higgins in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial defending Next Chapter bookstore owner Lanora Hurley, who has been criticized for scheduling a book signing by Karl Rove.

Brilliance

I had an epiphany today while painting the walls of Fire Petal Books. I've always considered myself a book person, though I enjoy a huge variety of hobbies and interests. Whenever anyone asks what I can't do, I always say I can't draw. While that's true, I've always longed to create art—visual art—on paper or canvas. Since I couldn't draw well, if at all, I never attempted to do anything more than put crayon to paper while playing with kids.

Then today as I sat on the floor, moving the paintbrush across the wall to fill in gaps and tidy up the edges, I realized the movement was very relaxing and even fun. As I was painting the wall all one color, I let myself paint freely without worrying that I wasn't painting it right.

That's when it struck, the thought that changed how I viewed art and my interaction with it. What does it matter if I'm any good at painting, so long as I enjoy it? It doesn't matter at all. If it's something that brings me peace, I'm going to do it whether people gasp in horror at the sight or gush over its magnificence. That's not what matters.

And then a related thought came: there are a lot of people who enjoy writing because it calms them and makes them happy. They don't have to be perfect at it to enjoy doing it. But I think what most of us (and I include myself here) don't realize is that we don't have to do it perfectly or make money from it or get it published to make the writing worthwhile. Sometimes just the doing of it is what matters most.

So tonight after I finished up at the store, I went to the craft shop and bought myself some canvases, paintbrushes, and paints. Tomorrow after I paint walls with a single color, I'm going to let myself go wild and paint whatever colors I like—and maybe even mixing them to create my own—in whatever nonsensical pattern feels natural. Right now it's not important to take classes or learn the theories behind each stroke. What I need is a moment alone with canvas, paint, and brush. It  will be more valuable to me than owning an expensive painting by someone else, because I will create it.

And that, my friends, is the stroke of brilliance I had today.

Why

This, all of this, is for children. These are their books, their stories. Sometimes we adults forget how vital stories are to the life of a child. We start thinking about sentence structure and royalties and the politics of book banning. But then, in a quiet moment in the corner of a bookstore we see the intent face of a boy as he reads of adventure, and the delighted expression on an angelic face as she gazes at pictures of the beautiful fairy princess. And we remember what it was like to believe, to need stories much more than we needed air to breathe.

———

I have a confession.

While most people I know would be mortified to be caught doing something so silly, I walk into the store, turn on the lights, look around, and then flop down on the floor. Arms and legs sprawled whichever way, I let my mind go and just breathe. Minutes, hours later, my mind insists on returning, and I let it back in only because I know I'll be there again tomorrow, filling my lungs with the life of a place dedicated to the happiness of children.

Someday soon, I want to see you walk into my store, flop down in an empty space, and just breathe for a moment or two. I might have to join you.