Achy Breaky Back - or - The Grass Isn't Greener on the Other Side (Tara Taylor Quinn)

And there you have it - I'm all over the place and undecided. That's it for me this week. Constantly moving and doing - averaging about four hours of sleep a night - and scattered. Yesterday I slowed down at one point to answer the phone and while I talked, was looking around at what I was doing and realized I had six different projects going all in various stages of completion. This takes multi-tasking to a whole new level.

But for now it's what I've got so here goes. The world of TTQ. The scary, scattered mind of TTQ is all I have to share with you this morning.

I'll start with my back. It hurts. I hurt it. My toe told it, 'just wait, she's not going to care or do anything for you and she sure isn't going to let you slow her down.' My back said, 'just wait and see what I can do to her.' My toe said, 'oh yeah, look at me. More than two weeks down the road and I'm no better because she won't slow down and put me up. Even for an hour.' My back glanced down and was a little intimidated. But it didn't stop trying to do me in. I didn't stop either. Yesterday, with a ThermaCare heating belt strapped to my lower back I moved mountains. Literally. Box mountains. I mean I moved BOXES. Bigger than wardrobe size - completely full boxes. I did it all by myself. I stacked two of them and they took up floor to ceiling in the room. And yeah, I got the one on top of the other. My mother told me once that it's not a matter of muscle, it's a matter of brain power and she was right. I stood right there, determined to do what I could see would be the only way to fit things in. I tried to envision myself just heaving that sucker up there, regardless of the fact that it comes to my shoulders and weighs as much as I do. And then it struck me - a slide. I grabbed a bedrail that happened to be handy because I'd just put it in a small slot of space I'd found for it, I tilted it at just the right angle on box one. Used all my weight - and my back - to push box two into place, and I heaved. That sweet box slid right up and there it was, in five minutes or less. Box in place. And that wasn't all. I lifted - yep really lifted, no tricks - full boxes of books. Made a stack that started on the floor. It grew over my head. And when I could no longer reach, I found a small hard thing I could use for a step and grabbing another box, climbed up that step, bent my legs and lifted. I have a stack of boxed books that goes all the way to the ceiling, too. I moved a treadmill. Free weights. A mattress - twice (because I'm scattered). The wing chair I moved three times - having to lift it and turn it to fit through two different doorways. I moved three closets full of clothes - and organzied them, too. My back isn't happy.

I have my desktop computer back. Finally. After six long weeks of drought. I have my settings. My music. My big, kindly lit, screen. My speed. It's a bit different. It's been touched since I was last on it. There was an e-mail folder missing that almost broke my heart. Except that my mom told me once that it didn't take muscle, it took brains and I figured out how to go find that deleted folder and bring it back. It's right where it was when I left it. Completely full of years worth of e-mails that speak of a lifetime of loving. And the promise of a future of loving. I have my address book. My contacts! I have my files. As I sit here, I am complete. For one scattered moment anyway.

Here's a discovery. It's harder to move into a small space than it is to move into a bigger one. Oh, there are the obvious advantages to small - less space to travel with heavy objects. But you have to move those objects eight times as many times. First you just have to get everything in somehow. Then you have to figure out what might go where. Then you have to move what's currently, erroneously in that spot. Then you have to move what's in the spot where you're going to move the thing that was in the original spot. And this doesn't end. Unless, like my mother says, you use brains not muscle. But, alas, I didn't do that. I finally got one room done. And then proceeded to fill up the cleared space with things from another room that was packed to the hilt. So...progress report...the kitchen is done. And looks beautiful. Small, needs new flooring (and counters and walls and cupboards and...) but beautiful. Did I mention this is just an interim stop? One bedroom is done. The living area is almost done. It was done but then I undid it and it's now sporting boxes again. I'm thinking that might be the new fashion. And hey, there's a BEAUTIFUL box room. Floor to ceiling, this room is packed with all non-essentials. And there's a gorgeous, foot and a half wide path from the door to the closet where I have to keep my pants and dress clothes because - you might have guessed - the closets are really small and my clothes didn't fit. I have shirts and skirts in one closet. Pants and dress clothes in another, and sweaters in another. We won't discuss purses and shoes. Mostly because they aren't unpacked yet.

And on to another thing weighing on my mind (since I don't have muscle.) Kind of a taboo subject, but I'm not actually talking about the subject, just people's misuse of it. And that is religion. Any religion. I've belonged to several different faiths during my life (getting the scattered theme yet?) I'm not here to talk about any of them, or any spiritual beliefs, either. Here's what's irking me. People who use their religion as an excuse to critisize someone else, yet they don't seem to find a problem with walking away from it to hurt someone else. I saw this happen yesterday and it's been bugging me ever since. A woman used the fact that she'd raised her kids in a particular faith as a reason to allow those kids look down their noses at and not associate with someone who wasn't following that faith's edicts, and yet, this same mother turned around and let those same kids use the 'f' word and other demeaning slang to the cut off person. I'm just saying, I don't think religion should be an excuse for a closed mind or a closed heart. And most particularly not if the mind and heart don't follow the edicts of the religion they're using to cut someone out. My achy breaky heart goes out to the person who was the recipient of yesterday's misplaced 'religious' action.

Tomorrow I get to fly home to Phoenix. I love Phoenix. I loved my life there. I love the desert and the blue skies and sunshine. The warmth. I love my mother who lives there. And my entire self is wrapped around my very special daughter who also lives there. On Friday she graduates from law school. I can hardly believe it. It scares me to death to think of the life she has ahead of her. She's chosen an incredibly difficult field. It needs her. She's up to it. I am fully confident that she's going to be so good for this world. She's going to make a difference. And I'm petrified. And sad that the little girl will be so completely changed. My biggest prayer is that she follows her heart. Always. And that she never lose that little girl. That she remembers to take her on play dates. Or just roll with her in the grass.

Ah, grass. Now here's something else that's played a part in my psyche this past week. Here I am, misplaced, out of my element, in a world that I do not relate to. Yeah, you bet the grass is greener on the other side. Or is it? The other side is Phoenix. And it's a desert. Desert's are brown. I'm used to the brown. Don't get me wrong, I find great beauty in Phoenix's browns. And the myriad of deep and vibrant colors of the desert plants in bloom. But yesterday as I was driving down this long country road (something I have to do to get anywhere from here) I notice that there's all this green around me. I mean, I had to blink and really look. There was so much green, in so many shades, the color actually managed to capture my entire focus. Not just my mental focus, but my spiritual and emotional focus, too. It's beauty was breathtaking. Alluring. Peaceful and exciting all at once.

So...all in all...scattered isn't so bad this week. And I'm here to tell you that sometimes, the grass is greener on this side.