The Book of Me, Prompt 4: My Favorite Season

Fall.  As soon as I saw this prompt, I knew my immediate answer - Fall.

I've spent my entire life in the American Midwest.  We (usually) experience four very distinct seasons. Winters are snowy, cold and windy. Spring is often quite pleasant, but it can still be chilly, rainy, and breezy. Summers are hot and humid, usually with somewhat sporadic rainfall.  The summer heat and humidity are typically not kind to my leg; I experience more swelling, which sometimes leads to more pain.  But Autumn in these American mid-latitudes is (to me) simply marvelous.  

Who doesn't love Autumn's colorful leaves?  My parents' first home had lots of large, old trees in the backyard, which, of course, meant lots of fun in the fall. (Ok, maybe not for my Dad :-)  We only lived in that house until I was about four years old, but I DO remember the leaves.  As I got older, I enjoyed Fall because it meant going back to school.  I loved school, I loved learning; to me, summer seemed like a waste of time and I was often bored.  My favorite sport to play at school was volleyball, and that was always a Fall sport.  Oh, and my birthday is in early November, so of course when you are a kid, you look forward to that every year.

Me, Fall 1979

As an adult, I've even decided that the beginning of Fall - September, early October) is my absolute favorite time of the year.  The temperature starts to cool down, but you can usually still go out without a jacket.  The sun is still relatively warm upon your face, but you don't feel like you're going to melt after ten minutes.  I've recently discovered that I enjoy apple-picking, and this is prime time for that.  And I've also recently discovered some of the wonderful Fall colors right in my 'backyard.'  I currently live in Indiana.  If you aren't very familiar with this state, all you really need to know is Indianapolis 500 and corn.  There are corn fields literally across the street from my neighborhood.   As a 'city gal' this bothered me at first, but I've learned to recognize and appreciate the beauty of the corn (and soybean) fields, especially early in the Fall.  

Yep, we have a lot of farm fields in Indiana, but it's not a flat, homogeneous landscape that's common farther west in the Great Plains.  We've got trees, and plenty of them.  So, my favorite view of early Fall occurs when the sun is out and the sky is completely clear of clouds.  The trees are still a rich, healthy shade of green and the cornstalks are a golden yellow-brown hue.  I am soooo NOT an artist, but I tried to make a quick sketch.  It turned out quite abstract, but the colors I wanted to capture are actually pretty accurate.  

I LOVE watching my children enjoy the Fall - the leaves, apple-picking, pumpkin patches, hayrides, Halloween, etc.

And finally, I think that Autumn just suits my personality more than any other season.  I'm a glass-half-empty kind of person, so I always seem to be preparing for the worst, just like the plants and animals are planning for the cold, barren winter.  I have a lot of days in which I just feel somewhat melancholy, not necessarily sad or depressed, but the feeling itself reminds me of an overcast rainy Fall day.

The Book of Me, Prompt #3: Your Physical Self (Part 2)

In Part 1, I alluded to a condition I have in my left pelvis and leg.  I was born with Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome (KTS).  People with KTS typically have capillary, vascular, and lymphatic malformations.  These malformations are usually confined to only one limb or one side of the body.  KTS is not something that is passed down from generation to generation; it is likely the result of a genetic mutation that occurs during embryonic development.  It occurs randomly. 

I have a port-wine stain birthmark that stretches from my left hip all the way down the entire length of my left leg and foot.  I have had varicose veins in the leg most of my life.  I started wearing a compression stocking as a young teenager, although not every day as I should have done.  In my 20s, my condition worsened dramatically and I had to start walking with a cane.  At that time, I had several surgeries to try to close off some of the most painful veins; however, that just pushes the blood into other poorly-functioning veins, so those end up becoming varicose, too.  I now must wear a thigh-length 40-50 mmHg compression stocking from the time I get out of bed until I go to sleep at night.  My foot swells up more than any other part of my leg, because the blood just pools down there, and I usually have to by wide-width shoes.  I try to rest and elevate the leg as much as I can throughout the day.  When I overdo it, I do get painful superficial blood clots, usually in my foot.  Thankfully, at this point, over-the-counter pain relievers are sufficient for me when I'm experiencing pain.  Many people with KTS need some pretty heavy-duty prescription pain meds to make it through each day. 

There are no cures for KTS. Many KTS patients I know suffer from bleeding ulcers and skin infections that land them in the hospital repeatedly.  Some others have had their KT limbs amputated.  I am fortunate in that I have never had to deal with any of those complications.

This disease is obviously a huge part of who I am and has shaped me into the person I am today, for better and for worse.  It limits me physically from being able to do the things I would like to do, but, at the same time, it helps me to put other 'small' problems into perspective and it makes me thankful for the blessings I do have.  The disease has kept my vanity in check, but it has also severely weakened by self-esteem.  I typically wear long pants or very long skirts and shoes that completely cover my foot, because I am apprehensive of other people seeing it.

BUT, I've decided to include it in my Book of Me because it is not something I am ashamed of.  I want my kids to be happy with their physical bodies, no matter what they look like, and I need to set the example.  (My daughter is only three years old, and yet she is already very perceptive of her appearance.)  Yes, my leg is unattractive and what some people would label ugly, but it is what I was given, so I must make the most of it.

Here are a couple of photos of my leg with and without my stocking on.  I must wear a toe cap in addition to the open-toe stocking, in order to keep my toes from swelling too much.

The Book of Me, Prompt #3: Your Physical Self (Part 1)

I decided to make a video for part of my response to prompt #3.

I plan on doing a 'Part 2' to this prompt later this week in which I will include some additional photographs and information.

Newspaper from Birthday

Here is the front page of The Cleveland Plain Dealer from November 4, 1978, my birthday.  It's not that unique, really, or even historically nostalgic.  We've got a story about a guy traveling across the nation in a covered wagon to protest high taxes (yikes), a story about the financial woes of the City of Cleveland (I see nothing's changed there), a story about problems with the Carter administration (standard in every newspaper edition from 1977-1980), and a story about a violent crime in the city (Again, I see nothing has changed there).

Prompt #2: Your Birth

I was born at 2:00 am on November 4, 1978 at Lake County Memorial Hospital in Painesville, Ohio, a town about 30 miles northeast of Cleveland, Ohio.  My dad and my mom, Terry and Jennifer (Bellan) Kowalski, both aged 27 years, named me Emily Claire, a name which I feel does not suit me at all.  I weighed 6lbs, 11oz at birth.  A port wine stain birthmark stretched all the way from my left hip bone down the entire length of my left leg. (Despite what doctors told my parents when I was a child, it turned out to be much more than 'just a birthmark.')  My hips were uneven, and I had to wear a brace on them for the first year of my life, so I crawled and walked later than most babies.  Overall, I was a healthy baby, the first child of my parents and the first grandchild of paternal grandparents.  This is a needlepoint that my dad's mom made for me.  It hung on the wall in my room all through my childhood.

Needlepoint made by Veronica Kowalski

The Book of Me, Reflections on Prompt #1

Since creating my 'I am' series last Saturday for prompt #1, I have read back through it several times, though not adding or subtracting anything or changing around the order of the statements.  I have been thinking more about why I included certain 'identities' of myself and excluded others. I wrote the original post in a very quick manner, without giving much thought to each individual statement, so I feel as if I was almost channeling my subconscious in the exercise. (I did not stop at #20, I just quit when I got a lapse in my train of thought and said "that's it.")  So, here are some thoughts about the exclusions I ended up making:

I am happy/content.  I am not really surprised that I left this one off my list.  I would be the first to admit that I am a "glass half empty" kind of person.  I've struggled with depression in the past and I worry too much about the future, usually for no good reason.  Someday, I would like to be able to write a list like this and have the words 'I am happy.' roll right off my keyboard as the first statement.

I am tolerant/accepting/open-minded.  This is one of the really important virtues that I try to instill in my kids everyday, so the fact that I did NOT list it in a description of myself in a bit disconcerting to me.  Is this a case of me needing to do a better job of 'practicing what I preach,' or did it just slip my mind at the time?

I am shy/an introvert.  I am actually quite happy that I left this one out of my list.  I've always thought of myself as more on the shy side.  I'm usually much happier outside of larger social situations.  But we've only lived in our current town about a year, and I need to keep trying to make new friends, so thinking of myself as an introvert would not be helpful at all in that respect. 

I am an American.  Oh boy, my Italian-immigrant great-grandfather is rolling around in his grave, because he LOVED America, and this probably would have been the first statement on his list.  Is my world view so small that I just take my American citizenship, rights, and freedoms for granted?

I am a Christian.  I am sad that I left this out of my original list, but I'm not surprised.  Over the last few years, I admit that my faith has wavered due to personal issues I've been dealing with AND the fact that I disagree with a lot of what my particular denomination teaches.  But I do pray often, I believe in God, and I believe in the presence of an afterlife.

I am blessed/thankful.  I am really disappointed in myself for not including something along these lines, because nearly every day, I try to give thanks for a least one aspect of my life.  And I truly do have an endless list of people and things I have been blessed with - I need to carry that thought with me at all times.

I understand that others who participated in this exercise put much more active thought and organization into their post for Prompt #1 than I did, and that some people are going to be continually adding to their lists.  I have not decided if I will be doing so or not.  I sort of just like having a record of who I thought I was on that particular day - it would be interesting if I did this exercise every six months or every year, just to see how my views of myself change over time.

Have you gone back through your 'I am' list and wondered why you included some things but not others?  I'd love to hear about your opinions!