THE IMPETUS

By Lisa Payne

April 14th, 2017

The ride home was quiet but our minds were full. I pulled in close to the front door and shut down the engine. She sighed heavily as I got out and I wanted so much to ignore it. I made my way around to the passenger side but I didn’t want to open her door.

Her leg slid off the seat and fell heavy towards the ground as I opened it.

“Oh Lis…” she trailed off.

She grabbed the handle on the ceiling of the car and pulled herself up to a stand. Her blue baseball hat clung to her bald head like a helmet. Her eyes swirled dizzy in the sunlight. I grabbed her purse and shut the door. As we walked around the car to the front steps, she stopped for a moment. She looked down at the front stoop as if it were the first time she’d seen it.

“I’m so tired Lis,” she said as she slowly turned her face toward me. The last few weeks were different. Her pale skin and child-like innocence was not lost on me. I blinked the image away and just said, “I know.”

“Here, help me up,” she asked.

She pulled on my arm like I had tugged on hers as a child. She had a bad knee but this was the first time she’d ever asked for help up the stairs. The weight of her hand on my arm. Like everything rested on the dwindling strength inside of me.

As we came inside, she collapsed to the couch in exhaustion. I asked her if she was ok and she said she was. I ran back out to the car to get the food and as I came back in I saw she hadn’t moved. My eyes started to burn hot and I couldn’t look at her. Frantically I diverted and began opening up the bags of Benihana’s and set the table. I fought it. I fought every second of that moment. It was too much. My thoughts huddled inward like a swarm of bees. My anger surged. All the elements combusted. It was significantly easier to funnel all my energy into organizing the food, into the plans I had later, into hating my ex-boyfriend for breaking things off with me the week before-whatever took me away. Anything was easier in that moment than to confront the cancer that was eating away at my Mom in the next room. In my fury of distraction-my sinking ship of denial, I hadn’t noticed that she’d sat up on the couch.

“Lis?” she said. Her voice was high, but steady. Like the exhaustion had shifted and left her to be for a brief moment so she could say this thing to me.

“Yeah?” I said. I was mad. Mad at her for breaking my rumination cycle because there I felt safe. There she wasn’t dying. Everything is normal. Chemo again next week. Is it possible I will actually miss taking her to chemo?

“I think you should write,” she said. There it was. The noise halted, spilling me over the handlebars and there I was forcibly falling back into the room.

“What?” I felt exposed and vulnerable. Like a stuntman shirt dangling by one arm on a clothesline. It was happening. The door was open.

“I think you should write. Yeah… You should write,” she said nodding to me.

I wasn’t ready. I turned back to the table. I don’t even know if I was listening to the significance of what she was saying. I just didn’t want her to go. Not yet. I didn’t want this moment to ever end.

“Do you want to eat in there or at the table?” I muttered, averting eye-contact.

I was pleasantly surprised. She stood up from the couch and hobbled over to the kitchen table. We sat quietly eating. Carry-out Benihana’s had become her favorite meal over the many weeks of chemo treatments. I watched her enjoy it delightfully. What I didn’t know then was that this would be our last meal together at that table, the only kitchen table I’d ever really known.

It was delicious.

Pam Payne: 3/27/54-5/20/17

THE BACKSTORY

Daydreamer & the doer was an idea that came to me ten years ago while on a flight to Florida. This is significant in that that flight was the first time I’d flown in nearly four years. My fear of flying seemed to happen overnight. It wasn’t the fear of the plane going down in flames. It was that I couldn’t get up, go get a Starbucks and come back. I’ve had mild claustrophobia and anxiety since I was young. But the fear had escalated to planes and it was enough to keep me from traveling and doing the things I enjoyed.

When my Grandpa passed away in 2011, I was heartbroken. He had always inspired me to do great things and I never felt any doubt in myself with his encouragement. After his passing, I decided I didn’t want to be grounded any longer. I had shit to do. So, I reached out to a therapist and began six weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy. This was probably the best money I’ve ever spent. He used imagery to guide me through the motion of boarding the plane, take-off and flying. What I realized off the bat was that my heart rate went up considerably when I was checking my imaginary luggage. Control freak, anyone? It could no longer go unnoticed. I was a budding control freak and I didn’t even know it. But the discovery allowed me to break down the same mental walls I had actually put up myself.

It was on that flight that I wrote out a list of things I’ve always wanted to do. Things that sounded fun, things I was afraid of, things that just occurred to me and things that I had wanted to do since I was a kid. The list eventually ran long but I found a little turbulence when flushing out what I really wanted to do with my life. How did I want to experience it? What do I want to see? How do I want to remember my life when I’m an old lady playing Bingo telling stories? This is what life is about. Experiencing all that life has to offer: family, relationships, education, traveling, making a living, facing fears and doing things that bring us joy. A sort of epic revelation happened on that flight. I realized that I could in fact do anything I wanted to do if I made the time and if I worked at it. I was elated, empowered and free.

Like most people, life happens. On that list were several things: go rock climbing, go hike Mt. Rainier, start taking dance class again, take photography class and start a blog. Life may have put a long pause button on that list but after my Mom passed away, I didn’t just hit play. I got to work. I’ve since gone rock climbing. I got to see Mt. Rainier and hiked the Mt. Rainier National Forest. I also now take dance class and photos every week. The last thing on that list? Daydreamer & the doer.

As you might imagine, I’ve started a new list. Life is short and I don’t want to wait for another tragic impetus to motivate me to work on it. You can do everything you want to accomplish in life with the right mindset. One of my favorite sayings is that routine is lethal. I hope you find Daydreamer & the doer to be welcoming, inspiring and a place to learn. We all have this one life. Make it everything you want it to be!

Sincerely,

Lisa Payne xo

Editor-In-Chief

MY STORY: DAYDREAMER & THE DOER

THE IMPETUS

THE BACKSTORY