Cavanaugh & Kavanaugh writing and more
Boo-hoo! Our Caffe Lena showed got snowed out! We’ve rescheduled for September. We have been playing so much ( 4 - 5 times a month, sometimes more) it’s been hard to do this writing. I am writing in my journal everyday, though. Thank goodness I have that at least.
My body has finally decided to make me stop being caretaker to the world. I have been diagnosed with Graves Disease. The really bizarre thing about all of this is that X’s live-in girlfriend/partner of the last 13 years has Graves. That was one reason why she couldn’t care for him when he was dying or pick up the pieces after he died. The disease is triggered by intense grief (often from the death of a loved one) or stress. The stress I’ve had for years now, though it certainly was compounded recently. The grief was very intense. Now I’m trying not to be stressed out about this illness. Last week, I thought I was going to die. I have never felt so sick in my life. My pulse, when I woke up in the morning, was 128. I’ve always had a slow pulse and low blood pressure. I was also shaking 24 hours a day, like really shaking. I’m finally taking some things that have calmed things down a bit, though I do get exhausted very quickly. Boy, I really need a vacation now. In the meantime, I’ve started a new schedule of going to bed by 9:30 pm and waking up at 5:30 am. Yikes! That’s a tough change. However, it’s giving me time in the morning to do things for myself like my journal writing and writing or practicing music, time to have a good breakfast, and time to hang out in a relaxed way with Grandsweetie before going off to work. My days have been so much less stressful as a result. Thanks to my wonderful partner! And… I’m planning to get back to writing my life stories again now that I have made time in the morning. I don’t have X to ask about details anymore, so I’d better get to work before it all disappears.
Death is such a fascinating phenomenon. It puts everyone through such a wide range of emotions. We dread it and fear it, though some of us welcome it. The survivors inevitably grow and learn from it. Until X died last month, I hadn’t lost anyone very close to me since I was a child. Though Grandsweetie’s mother died almost two years ago, which definitely threw me for a while, I hadn’t been that close to her at the end. It was hard, she was so distressed and often belligerent to me. I still miss her though and wish she were around to love her beautiful daughter. But I’m digressing. I forgot what real intense grief is like. It has been interesting noticing the different stages. The first two weeks, when I least expected it, I was overtaken by deep crying. I washed my car a lot in those first few weeks. An automatic carwash is a great place to let yourself lose it emotionally. You can scream and cry for those couple of minutes, and no one can hear or see you. Boy, my car was really clean. Now I keep expecting X to show up to pay child support or just hang out. Also, for some reason, people from our ( X’s and my) past have randomly shown up at our (Kav and Cav’s) last two shows, not realizing I was one of the performers and also not knowing that X had died only weeks before. These were people from at least 20 years ago. Then … I wanted to call X up to tell him about it. Life just keeps getting stranger and stranger. Thankfully, Grandsweetie has stopped playing “dead”. She kept laying her dolls down on the floor and telling me to cry because they were dead. Then we had to take turns being dead while the other person cried. No one else would play this game with her. I thought and still think she is brilliant and figured out her own way of dealing with all the death she has experienced in her brief 3 years. It was a hard game to play, though. I have to admit that I am relieved it’s over. Now we have all of X’s things to deal with as well as legal issues, property, etc. I’m sure we will figure it all out, then things can get back to normal - whatever that is.
What a strange time this is. I have been going through old papers that belonged to Paul and I - band flyers, journals, set lists, notes to each other or our kids, all kinds of random things. I never realized that he saved so much. He has cards the kids made for him or us when they were very young. He has letters he wrote to people and never sent. He was always very good at that. I have to sort in small doses. It gets way too overwhelming. I have put together a binder with most of our band posters sorted chronologically. That was really fun to do. I know there are some missing, but who knows what happened to them. The band, General Eclectic, was very popular in the mid-late 80s. There is lots of memorabilia from those years. I also found a link to a “What venues do you miss from the Capital Region” post that mentions us. If you search the page (Control-f) for General Eclectic, it will take you right to the Half Moon Cafe post.
The memorial is pretty well set to go. It is going to be a huge event. He deserved it. Everything is fitting into place nicely. We have friends helping out and being part of the service. Basically, he wanted a big party, so the service will be the first hour or so, then party for the rest of the time. We have 5 hours reserved at the hall. There will be lots of music and memorabilia. I really hope I am able to sing the song I wrote for him while he was dying. I guess we’ll see. Once the service is over, I think we’ll all be okay. I hope so. It all comes in waves.
My daughter, FyreGoddess, just accepted a new contract doing more accounting - something she really doesn’t want but is accepting rather than be unemployed right now. It reminds me of her first year back at public school after years at The Albany Free School, a very alternative school. She had the incredible bad luck to get a math teacher who believed in teaching the lesson for the week on Monday then giving worksheets and homework for the rest of the week. Fyre was not only not used to this style of teaching, but it made her “unlearn” the lesson. She went to her math teacher and asked to make a deal. The deal was that he would let her do whatever she wanted during his class period, and if she could pass the test on Friday without doing the worksheets and homework, she could continue the next week doing whatever she wanted during that class period through the end of the year. If at any time she failed the test, she would do the work. That afternoon I got a call from him telling me that he “wanted to teach her a lesson” and wanted my permission to approve the deal. He was very snide about the whole thing, so I, chuckling to myself, told him to go right ahead. I thought a lesson was certainly in order. Fyre, true to form, spent the rest of the year doing all of her homework for her other classes and reading many wonderful books. In June, I got another call from him, thanking me for letting the deal go through. He told me he was reevaluating his style of teaching as a result of this experience. Fyre always was a go-getter and still is. Go get ‘em, Fyre!
I promised I would give more info about the “Snow Fairies.” I figured it wasn’t really fair to ask a three-year old to just give up Santa, so I decided that the Snow Fairies would come to our house as part of our Solstice celebration. They come randomly starting on Dec. 1st, leaving small gifts on our candle table while we are asleep. I’ve found that this dispels a lot of the anxiety around that “one big blowout day.” They don’t come every day, but often enough to keep the magic alive. They often leave new candles or candleholders as well as toys, trinkets, or warm clothing like scarves or mittens. Here is a story I wrote about the snow fairies that I have copywritten but not found an illustrator for, yet. If you are an illustrator and are interested, please contact me.
Winter Solstice ©2006 Deb Cavanaugh
On the longest night, as winter breathes a frosty sigh and reaches icy fingers across the sky, through starlight and moon bright, the snow fairies begin to dance down their blanket of white. They dance down a blanket of company, comfort, and plenty for all. They dance for those who believe the light will come again. They dance to every child young or old, happy or sad, asleep or awake, alone or together. They bring dreams of peace and light and hands holding hands around the whole wide world. We light our twenty-one candles this night. Their heat and brightness warm our hearts. We sing songs of light and love and the beauty and harshness of winter. Our voices ring through the cold quiet night. We sleep deeply. We wake in the morning to small gifts the snow fairies have left - warm sweaters, scarves and mittens, slippers for chilled toes, a light-up top and hope for another day.
It continues to amaze me how things work out just the way they should. I have been a little stressed about my lack of work lately, and having to remind myself that I really want to try to make a go at music. We got offered a set with a new friend near Ithaca, NY at an interesting sounding coffeehouse, The Blue Frog Coffeehouse. That’s pretty exciting. We’re both looking forward to trying out a new area. Then, yesterday I got a call from someone looking for a musical director for a school musical, Once Upon A Mattress. I’ll be doing auditions this Wed. and Thurs., then doing weekly rehearsals starting in the middle of Jan. through the middle of May. I almost turned it down. Once again, like when I did the classical mandolin performance in Kingston, I’m feeling like I may be in over my head. After speaking with the co-director though, I think I can do this. Mostly they want someone who can work with the singers and accompany them during rehearsals and the performances. If I have the music ahead of time to practice, I should have no problem. It’s just my lack of self-confidence that always gets in the way. Anyway, I said, “Yes.” Yikes! Here I go again.
Another very cool thing happened this week. Someone randomly found this blog, left a nice comment, sent me an e-mail and wrote a wonderful post about us on his blog. Thanks so much, Mark. Please go and check him out.
Oh well, I didn’t make the finals in the lyric writing contest. I will admit that I’m a little disappointed, but also very pleased to have made it as far as I did. Some of the nominees in the other categories who made it to the finals include Janis Ian (one of my songwriting idols), Freebo, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, They Might Be Giants, Lowen & Navarro, Art Garfunkle, Cris Williamson, Jay Mankita, and many more. One of the lyric winners is Tom Kimmel, who has been writing for other artists such as The Byrds, Linda Ronstadt, Levon Helm, Johnny Cash, Joe Cocker, Waylon Jennings, and more. I’ll get over my disappointment. Meanwhile, I hope I get myself in gear and write more. By the way, here is the lyric I entered.
WITHIN THE GIANT’S EYE
© 2006 Deb Cavanaugh
As a girl, I spent my growing years
On a small Nantucket isle
I climbed up into the lighthouse tower
And looked across the miles
I recognized the birds in flight
They soared across the sky
I looked down at the sea below
From within the giant’s eye,
from within the giant’s eye
As a woman I moved on from there
To a life that was my own
Started working in a factory
Going home with aching bones
I moved into a tenement
In my room I’d sit and cry
I looked down on the city
From within the giant’s eye,
from within the giant’s eye
As a wife I watched my own true love
Work eighteen-hour days
My babies never played out in the sun
They worked their lives away
I watched them lose their fingers
I watched their spirits die
The bosses watched their workers
From within the giant’s eye,
from within the giant‘s eye
Now I go and leave a legacy
Of hope that never dies
Remembering those birds I used to see
They wheeled across the sky
As my life is ending
I encourage you to fly
I look down on your struggle
From within the giant’s eye,
from within the giant’s eye
Well, hopefully I will be back on track a bit now that school has started. I managed to get both of my at-homers into school this year. My youngest son, RC2 who was homeschooling for high school the past two years, has started at an alternative high school here in town. Grandsweetie has just started pre-school at our other alternative school. I will actually have time again to write, keep up with the house, practice music and try to get more gigs. I feel like a new woman. It’s amazing how seemingly little changes can alter your whole state of mind. I also have more work this year, so finances won’t feel as desperate. That’s a big factor in everyone’s state of mind. As hard as I try to “Be Here Now”, it’s hard not to worry when I’m not sure if I’ll have my rent at the end of the month. I’m pretty sure that won’t be an issue this year. I also will be paying less for tuition for two young people than I was paying for daycare for one. We really need to get together and try to figure out some solutions for daycare in this country. I am struggling to try to pursue my music and taking every job I can find in music while painting and doing light construction on the side, and was being driven to the poorhouse by daycare costs. I can make a pretty good income if I work enough hours and still struggle. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for someone who makes minimum wage and has to shoulder those costs. Where is our village that it takes to raise a child? I’d love to hear other people’s experiences. When RC2 was very young I had a community around who all had young ones. We had an informal childcare co-op and traded back and forth often. It was like a huge extended family. All the children practically lived at each other’s houses and are still very close. Unfortunately, I inherited Grandsweetie suddenly and haven’t yet been able to set that up again for us, but I’m working on it. Anyone have any ideas how we can change this?
This is fondly known in my immediate family as “birthday week.” Mine was a couple of days ago; Fyre’s is today - Happy Birthday! - And my youngest, RC2, has a birthday the next day. In addition, there are lots of friends whose birthdays fall in this general time frame. My theory is that in the later fall, the weather gets chilly and folks start getting pretty cozy. Next thing you know, we end up with lots of babies in the late summer. I used to cringe during my fertile days when October/November rolled around. I’ve had more pregnancies than I’d like to recall with only three going full term. I am very lucky to have those three and my two grands. I am also very lucky to be able to relax when those cozy, cuddly months come around now. Menopause, once you get through the years long roller coaster ride, is actually a wonderful thing. Anyway, I’m getting off-track here. I remember waiting for Fyre. She was due on my birthday. X thought it would be fun to throw me a small birthday party. Everyone sat around watching me, waiting for something to happen. It was one of the weirdest birthdays I’ve ever had - and I’ve had a lot of them. I finally went to bed and let them party without me. Sure enough, as soon as I went into our bedroom, the party kicked in. They could only think about Fyre’s impending birth with me in the room. Luckily she didn’t come the next day, because everyone was hung over and wouldn’t have been any help at all. X’s sister had come down from San Francisco to be here when Fyre arrived and was getting impatient. We were all so naive. They all believed that if that were the due date, that was when she would come. I knew better, but there was no telling them. Anyway, the 2nd day after my birthday, soon after dinner (during which I had again been the entertainment as we all watched Fyre roll around in utero knocking over my plate of spaghetti that had been balancing on my huge belly), my water broke. I had originally planned to hitchhike to the hospital, but had been talked out of it by my now best friend who had gotten busted in Disneyland with us a few weeks before. I guess she was the sensible one, if any of us had any sense at all. We called the doctor, then her for a heads up (she was the only one in our circle of friends with a car, which is probably why I had figured on hitching a ride) and managed to stay home until morning. I had hoped to avoid repeating my mother’s tendency to have long, hard labors, but was doomed by heredity and scoliosis. I ended up being induced with pitocin in the late morning. It was horrible. My contractions immediately went from very mild to very hard and fast. It was still many more hours with a grumpy substitute doctor. I was very happy to see and hold my lovely daughter, who has grown up to be FyreGoddess. Her aunt, X’s sister, had waited patiently and gazed at her through a window. I know they say that babies can’t see very far or well at that age, but we all swore that their eyes connected at that moment, and I know they always had a special bond. My life was changing very rapidly. Here I was a married woman, whom I swore I would never be, and now a mother too. I was completely in love with my daughter and very excited to take on this new challenge. I felt a part of something and complete for the first time in my life. I was ecstatic!