A Vietnamese woman once placed her small warm hand on my then pregnant belly and said, "You have girl." I believed her, because she was so different from me, at a time when I didn't want to be me. I believed her because we were standing in her element, fresh figs in a bamboo bowl, unsweetened green tea in a cup, other Vietnamese women softly clucking in what was for this Texas girl, a foreign tongue. I believed because she believed.
A doctor who had a reputation for incompetence once stopped me at work to say that my neck must be hurting because of the fixed tilt of my head. He was right, and the pain was intense. He took the time to walk me upstairs to his office, help me onto an examination table, and spend a half hour trying different neck collars to find the perfect fit. His attention was thoughtful, slow and methodical, sweetly paternal. He seemed to care about me in that moment despite all the other things he could have been doing, should have been doing, and this made me trust him, maybe even believe in him.
Two women visited me in the hospital while I labored with my fourth child, two complete strangers. They came to pray for me. I'll never know if it was their practice to visit all maternity patients, or only those who, for whatever reason, were laboring alone (my husband could not be with me at the time because we had no one to watch our two year old). As I sat in an uncomfortable birthing chair the women prayed the Lord's Prayer, each holding one of my hands. I felt embarrassed for crying, but the tears were unstoppable. These women had been unexpected, their maternal kindness filling my deepest need which was, simply, to know that I wasn't alone.
What do these instances have in common? Is it vulnerability, pain, fear and uncertainty? Is it gentle touch, intimate attention, that others had intuited a need or question that I hadn't articulated? These were people I didn't know well, might never see again, adding a rare ephemeral quality which focused the moment.
In all three instances and many others like them, I trusted someone, at least for a moment. But I wasn't required to invest long term trust. These were very low risk exchanges. I would lose nothing for trusting these people. A gender guess, a non-invasive medical prop and sincere prayer weren't going to kill or bankrupt anybody.
But what about riskier types of trust? How do we discern the trustworthy from the predators, the otherworldly wise from the out-of-this-world crazy? In many cases, we don't have to. When a psychic tells us we'll travel the world and meet Prince Charming in the next six months, it's no big deal. But what about when large sums of money are involved, or our basic human rights, or even the long term future of our souls?
While we're busy worrying about GMOs, irregular moles and holes in the ozone layer, we're told this life is nothing compared to eternity. We keep on paying on our mortgages, sending our kids to college, flossing and planning for retirement, despite this life being just a Pinto compared to the Cadillac that follows -- if we're good, a relative term.
But I trip over this part about the after life, especially after working in the medical field for so long. Death is real, life is real, and both can get ugly. And I've never heard from those who landed in any hereafter.
I admit that I'm an SNSB, a Special Needs Spiritual Being. I'm a mess when it comes to religion and faith. Call it my "cross to bear". I've had holy water poured on me by well-meaning Christians. Some wearing giant diamond Jesus pins have prayed over me outside busy shopping strips, prayed that my former husband, a cheating, gambling, drug-addicted abuser would return to me because "marriage is a sacrament, and what God has joined together..."
So many have worried over the fate of my soul, all because I struggle with reconciling the reality of the every day with resurrections and virgin births. There seems to be such a chasm between the Catholic church and what looks like the real world to me. Is real so wrong? Is God so picky about where and with whom He works? The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a THICK book. Add the THICK Bible to that. I get lost in all those words, in what reads like both a taunting riddle and a legal summons.
I need simple. I need Bible Braille and a seeing-eye dog for the many busy contradictory intersections. I need extra time on tests, miracles, signs, SIGNS, SIGNS!!! Something like a bubbling brook that gurgles, The confusion is theirs. The barriers and strictures are man made. Relax. I'm everywhere...------>And would God actually speak this, our human language? Or would it more likely be Math? Or visual images? Or the patterns in music? Why would God limit communication to only words, or rely solely on them to reach each one of us? Some can't read. Some aren't allowed to go to school to learn. Some will never see a Bible nor have the freedom to choose a religion.
And another thing, Why is God a He? The apologists say that women can not be priests because Jesus, the first priest, was a man. In other words, because Jesus had a penis.
My minds gets stuck in loops when I try to make sense of everything. It goes something like this:
The Catholic church states that abortion is wrong because of the sanctity of life, but says that capital punishment is right because the guilty must be punished, the worst guilt punishable by death, guilt decided by a jury of fallible humans. The church says that killing the guilty is sanctioned by God (in the Old Testament at least), because it's written in the Bible by men who heard God's voice or had visions, and those visions or auditory hallucinations were different then than they are now, um, because those people weren't crazy like we'd assume in modern times. Anyway, the whole point of religion is giving our lives over to God, to Christ, who died for our sins, though we're still sinners, but he died to save us, to save us from death, though we die anyway, so rather we're saved from eternal damnation in Hell, Hell being either a hot fire or merely a separation from God, at least more of a separation that we already experience when worshiping a silent invisible being. So Heaven is our goal, which is either gold and pearls or a mental state of union with God, sort of like we have now on a good day. And Heaven exists because the Bible says it does, a book written by men only, the same men who thought the earth was the flat center of the universe.
Pope Francis gives me hope. I've considered writing him a letter, but the last time I wrote to a Pope (Benedict), he quit.
In our everyday lives we are advised to check the accuracy of our purchase receipts, to read the fine print of contracts and other complex legal documents, to ask questions, dig deeper, follow our instincts. But religion says the opposite, that no matter what, we are to fall into faith, forget logic, forget ourselves and all that is "secular". We're told to simply trust the mystery.
But there's a big difference between a mystery and a puzzle. A puzzle has pieces. We can find the pieces, solve the puzzle. A mystery is elusive, baffling, confusing. And I know one thing for sure, especially since the Affordable Healthcare Act became a reality: There's money in confusion.
My brain can not reconcile these things. And my common sense will not let me make that leap of faith. As a child it was easy to believe, just as believing in Santa was easy. But I'm no longer a child.
I'll let a soft-spoken woman predict the sex of my unborn child in broken English. I can temporarily have faith in a doctor I wouldn't let operate on my dog while he makes a benign attempt to soothe a pain in my neck. I can sit with those who wish to pray over me when I am afraid and lonely, even though prayer is an odd practice if God's will, which is always aligned with our best interests, can not be altered.
But I can't take the biggest leap of all, that giant ten meter dive, complete with divine rotations and impossible flips without making even the tiniest splash. I can't because I don't know what I'm diving for, believing the impossible for, suspending disbelief for, and I simply can't comprehend ambiguous unproven consequences or trust that there's even water in the pool.
You're diving for eternal salvation... Salvation from what? From the wages of sin... Which are? Death... We still die. Your body dies... Exactly. But your soul goes on to be with the Lord... What's a soul? Your spirit... Which goes where? To Heaven... Which is where? Where God is... Which is where? In too beautiful a place for our feeble minds to comprehend...just trust that God is with you, that you are not alone. Have faith.
For now I have no choice but to be still, at least until the water rises up to meet me.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Flying Cats & Lost Shoes
Bette Midler and my mother, Beverly, share a December 1st birthday. That says a lot, or not. It depends on whether you believe in astrology, that Sagittarians are a little wild, will punch you in the eye then take you to the doctor. I like to compare average folk to celebrities, romanticizing both.
Mom saved alcoholics. Bette saves trees. Mom was an alcoholic. Bette played one in The Rose.
The comparison ends there, except Beverly's fate was similar to that of Bette's fictional character.
Today is weird. I've been on Twitter way too much, which means I now know of every disaster and crime around the world, and every flu death so far this season. Maybe it's not a good idea to be so randomly connected after all, especially when you're deep in the doldrums.
The flu is going around, and my thirty-nine year old niece is in ICU on a ventilator. She has pneumonia in both lungs, a complication of the flu. She hadn't been feeling well for a week or two, went to the doctor and was immediately transported by ambulance to Baylor All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth.
I have a babysitter on standby in case I have to fly there on a moment's notice. I hope I don't have to make that call.
This cusp of tragedy coincides perfectly with my sudden preoccupation with mortality. Too many friends have cancer or recently died. Death seems to be knock-knock-knock'n on everybody's door.
I thought this wasn't supposed to happen until I was old, maybe 82.
The obituaries in the New York Times are usually a short list -- three names to save space -- of famous or semi-famous people. I always focus on the age. It's comforting to see that death usually occurs in the eighth decade of life. This matters because I have much to do before I join the daisy pushers. I have small kids to raise for starters.
But this isn't the problem I have with death, that it could happen too soon, will happen to me one day. I have a problem with death happening at all, to anyone. Which is unfortunate because it does happen, to everyone.
Deepak Chopra, who annoyed me until I watched an interesting interview this morning, talked about finding a mental state that enables us to peacefully accept mortality. I haven't found that mental state yet. But I need it, because the small loose ends are getting to me. For instance, the gray fluffy cat on Highway 6 last week. Her body was stretched as if flying, midair in a Superman pose, when she was hit by a car. It was a completely insignificant event on the whole. It certainly won't make the Twitter feed. But I noticed it.
Then there was the lone shoe at the base of the curb farther down, a shoe without its foot or person attached, which metaphorically screams: RANDOM. Just as random was a leaf, bright red and brittle, floating peacefully from its tree limb to the street below before it was blown asunder by my rushing SUV. Every few miles there was something else, a plastic shopping bag blown across the highway, the pulpy remains of squirrels, stray animals wandering near stray people.
These things really bother me, especially juxtaposed with Jesus Saves and God Listens bumper stickers. Those stickers mean what exactly, when a young beautiful mother of two is fighting for her life in a Fort Worth hospital bed.
People get lost, hurt and die. No one is spared. And that sucks, even on a good day.
I remember my niece, Linda, when she was a toddler. She was born in Hawaii, moved here to Texas when she was very young. The first time I met her was an afternoon at her paternal grandmother's house when Linda emerged from a bedroom, still groggy from a long nap. Her hair was a mad high rise, dark eyes puffy. She was so timid, suspiciously eying those in the room. She certainly didn't know who I was yet, her mother's younger sister. I never heard her speak that day.
Linda grew up watching me. She used to sit on the back of the toilet to watch me apply my makeup. Like most little girls, she was fascinated with growing up, with feminine mysteries, but she would never need makeup. She is exceptionally beautiful -- black hair, brown eyes, a flawless olive complexion and lashes as thick as a grass skirt. She also grew into a courageous outspoken woman, no longer timid. She describes herself on Facebook as "Loud".
There are several others in ICU with Linda, similar symptoms, hooked up to ventilators. This flu season the victims seem to be in their mid-twenties or middle-aged and otherwise healthy. It doesn't make any sense. Nothing does, really, unless I accept random as the norm, which is tricky and disturbing. The other option is to believe in magical nonsense, which I'm too old for now.
I wish I still believed.
Perhaps Deepak can suggest a nice balance between science and spirituality, or put a pleasant spin on random events. I vaguely recall something about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, that the act of observing changes what is observed. Kind of like an Escher drawing. Something more easily digestible would be nice, some peace with permanent endings, and reassurance to quell the fear that none of this, none of us, really matter.
This is a dark blip in my usually positive outlook, but while it's here it's real and worse, there are real circumstances feeding it.
No celebrities immediately come to mind when I think of my niece. Except maybe Melody Moezzi, an Iranian American writer, attorney and activist. She is exotically beautiful, smart, and "Loud". She's a fighter who overcame serious health problems.
This comparison is a strange comfort, my own version of nonsense. It's also comforting to read that All Saints is committed to meeting everyone's spiritual needs: "Persons of all faiths and those of none may come with equal confidence." Those of none.
I like the word confidence. Is it a cousin to faith? Deepak described faith this morning as the act of accepting the unknown, releasing the need to make sense of everything. Faith is also defined as belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. The definition that gives me the most trouble is "the theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will." Those words leave me feeling like the empty shopping bag blowing randomly across the universe.
Maybe it was faith that propelled the cat across the busy highway. Maybe faith is the lost shoe owner's trusting acceptance that he would have the strength to move on and buy another pair. Faith might be the courage to gracefully leave the tree, to accept the messy random pulp of life. My mother, who saved others but couldn't save herself, was a frequent visitor at All Saints before alcohol won the war. She always advised that we do what we can then, "Let go and let God." But when she let go, so did God. Poor communication, perhaps.
Mom saved alcoholics. Bette saves trees. Mom was an alcoholic. Bette played one in The Rose.
The comparison ends there, except Beverly's fate was similar to that of Bette's fictional character.
Today is weird. I've been on Twitter way too much, which means I now know of every disaster and crime around the world, and every flu death so far this season. Maybe it's not a good idea to be so randomly connected after all, especially when you're deep in the doldrums.
The flu is going around, and my thirty-nine year old niece is in ICU on a ventilator. She has pneumonia in both lungs, a complication of the flu. She hadn't been feeling well for a week or two, went to the doctor and was immediately transported by ambulance to Baylor All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth.
I have a babysitter on standby in case I have to fly there on a moment's notice. I hope I don't have to make that call.
This cusp of tragedy coincides perfectly with my sudden preoccupation with mortality. Too many friends have cancer or recently died. Death seems to be knock-knock-knock'n on everybody's door.
I thought this wasn't supposed to happen until I was old, maybe 82.
The obituaries in the New York Times are usually a short list -- three names to save space -- of famous or semi-famous people. I always focus on the age. It's comforting to see that death usually occurs in the eighth decade of life. This matters because I have much to do before I join the daisy pushers. I have small kids to raise for starters.
But this isn't the problem I have with death, that it could happen too soon, will happen to me one day. I have a problem with death happening at all, to anyone. Which is unfortunate because it does happen, to everyone.
Deepak Chopra, who annoyed me until I watched an interesting interview this morning, talked about finding a mental state that enables us to peacefully accept mortality. I haven't found that mental state yet. But I need it, because the small loose ends are getting to me. For instance, the gray fluffy cat on Highway 6 last week. Her body was stretched as if flying, midair in a Superman pose, when she was hit by a car. It was a completely insignificant event on the whole. It certainly won't make the Twitter feed. But I noticed it.
Then there was the lone shoe at the base of the curb farther down, a shoe without its foot or person attached, which metaphorically screams: RANDOM. Just as random was a leaf, bright red and brittle, floating peacefully from its tree limb to the street below before it was blown asunder by my rushing SUV. Every few miles there was something else, a plastic shopping bag blown across the highway, the pulpy remains of squirrels, stray animals wandering near stray people.
These things really bother me, especially juxtaposed with Jesus Saves and God Listens bumper stickers. Those stickers mean what exactly, when a young beautiful mother of two is fighting for her life in a Fort Worth hospital bed.
People get lost, hurt and die. No one is spared. And that sucks, even on a good day.
I remember my niece, Linda, when she was a toddler. She was born in Hawaii, moved here to Texas when she was very young. The first time I met her was an afternoon at her paternal grandmother's house when Linda emerged from a bedroom, still groggy from a long nap. Her hair was a mad high rise, dark eyes puffy. She was so timid, suspiciously eying those in the room. She certainly didn't know who I was yet, her mother's younger sister. I never heard her speak that day.
Linda grew up watching me. She used to sit on the back of the toilet to watch me apply my makeup. Like most little girls, she was fascinated with growing up, with feminine mysteries, but she would never need makeup. She is exceptionally beautiful -- black hair, brown eyes, a flawless olive complexion and lashes as thick as a grass skirt. She also grew into a courageous outspoken woman, no longer timid. She describes herself on Facebook as "Loud".
There are several others in ICU with Linda, similar symptoms, hooked up to ventilators. This flu season the victims seem to be in their mid-twenties or middle-aged and otherwise healthy. It doesn't make any sense. Nothing does, really, unless I accept random as the norm, which is tricky and disturbing. The other option is to believe in magical nonsense, which I'm too old for now.
I wish I still believed.
Perhaps Deepak can suggest a nice balance between science and spirituality, or put a pleasant spin on random events. I vaguely recall something about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, that the act of observing changes what is observed. Kind of like an Escher drawing. Something more easily digestible would be nice, some peace with permanent endings, and reassurance to quell the fear that none of this, none of us, really matter.
This is a dark blip in my usually positive outlook, but while it's here it's real and worse, there are real circumstances feeding it.
No celebrities immediately come to mind when I think of my niece. Except maybe Melody Moezzi, an Iranian American writer, attorney and activist. She is exotically beautiful, smart, and "Loud". She's a fighter who overcame serious health problems.
This comparison is a strange comfort, my own version of nonsense. It's also comforting to read that All Saints is committed to meeting everyone's spiritual needs: "Persons of all faiths and those of none may come with equal confidence." Those of none.
I like the word confidence. Is it a cousin to faith? Deepak described faith this morning as the act of accepting the unknown, releasing the need to make sense of everything. Faith is also defined as belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. The definition that gives me the most trouble is "the theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will." Those words leave me feeling like the empty shopping bag blowing randomly across the universe.
Maybe it was faith that propelled the cat across the busy highway. Maybe faith is the lost shoe owner's trusting acceptance that he would have the strength to move on and buy another pair. Faith might be the courage to gracefully leave the tree, to accept the messy random pulp of life. My mother, who saved others but couldn't save herself, was a frequent visitor at All Saints before alcohol won the war. She always advised that we do what we can then, "Let go and let God." But when she let go, so did God. Poor communication, perhaps.
Friday, December 27, 2013
Danny Boy
DeDe and I worked together for one year at a local hospital in the late 90's. We were both mammographers and since our patient load was light, we had a lot of time to talk. She did most of the talking, about her pending divorce, her kids, her weight, her sister with multiple sclerosis.
When my best friend of almost twenty years passed away, DeDe said to me, "I can't imagine how you feel right now, because I can't imagine how I'd go on without Sally."
Sally was her best friend, a woman I met through DeDe. She would one day be my coworker and confidant.
Last week Sally notified those who knew and worked with DeDe that she had passed away. DeDe's friends and family met in an upstairs party room at an Italian restaurant to celebrate her life. We released balloons in her honor, small pieces of paper attached to the ribbon with favorite memories. I hugged Sally as the perfect orange spheres lifted up into a gray sky. For a moment, an old pain returned, that of losing my own Deedee fifteen years ago.
A few years ago I wrote about Deedee here, a piece titled "Immortal Frog" that attempted to describe a twenty year friendship. I wasn't satisfied with the piece, then or now. It's hard to convey perfection or deep loss, to take a reader all the way to heaven or hell. I will never be able to recreate that love in words, to explain it, paint it, make it real for a reader.
I thought of Deedee this afternoon while driving, which is happening a lot now, and I realized that it's because of DeDe's death. Duh. But today was different. Real or imagined, I could feel my friend in the car with me, like a fullness within and without. I could almost smell the Agree shampoo in her thick hair, see her square earthy hands, hear her high-pitched laugh. I felt connected to something rich and old and forever. I'm not superstitious enough to believe it was actually her, but like particular smells, our deepest loves stay with us, in high fidelity.
I thought about the laughter we shared, and not just any laughter, but the sort that becomes gasping, raking animal sounds. On the telephone we would build up a rhythm and humor tension, and before we hung up we were barking and choking. It was a soul orgasm. I used to tell her, "We're adding years to our lives."
We felt immortal back then.
Fifteen years later, I feel deeply mortal. I don't think it's an age thing. I think it's a laughter thing. I just don't do it like I did. No one makes me laugh like Deedee, for whatever reason. With her, I was home. I've tried to find her in others, thought I had a couple of times. But she's not out there. There was only one. Our friendship was perfection, the fit. We built it, admired it openly, talked about how lucky we were.
What I missed most today was picking up the phone. I used to be able to pick it up at any moment and call her. But today, when one of her favorite songs, Danny Boy, came on the car radio, I wanted to share it with her. I considered calling my sister or one of my other friends, started making up excuses, digging up words to say. But no one else could have filled the void.
There was no one to talk to, not the way I wanted to talk. I have friends, and I love them, but they aren't her and today, no one else would do.
As often happens, the thought occurred to me that maybe I might find it again, that perfect friendship fit. Then reality hit, not hard, just a soft nudge. Maybe it was Deedee saying, No, you won't find it again. But that's okay. Once upon a time, it found us.
When my best friend of almost twenty years passed away, DeDe said to me, "I can't imagine how you feel right now, because I can't imagine how I'd go on without Sally."
Sally was her best friend, a woman I met through DeDe. She would one day be my coworker and confidant.
Last week Sally notified those who knew and worked with DeDe that she had passed away. DeDe's friends and family met in an upstairs party room at an Italian restaurant to celebrate her life. We released balloons in her honor, small pieces of paper attached to the ribbon with favorite memories. I hugged Sally as the perfect orange spheres lifted up into a gray sky. For a moment, an old pain returned, that of losing my own Deedee fifteen years ago.
A few years ago I wrote about Deedee here, a piece titled "Immortal Frog" that attempted to describe a twenty year friendship. I wasn't satisfied with the piece, then or now. It's hard to convey perfection or deep loss, to take a reader all the way to heaven or hell. I will never be able to recreate that love in words, to explain it, paint it, make it real for a reader.
I thought of Deedee this afternoon while driving, which is happening a lot now, and I realized that it's because of DeDe's death. Duh. But today was different. Real or imagined, I could feel my friend in the car with me, like a fullness within and without. I could almost smell the Agree shampoo in her thick hair, see her square earthy hands, hear her high-pitched laugh. I felt connected to something rich and old and forever. I'm not superstitious enough to believe it was actually her, but like particular smells, our deepest loves stay with us, in high fidelity.
I thought about the laughter we shared, and not just any laughter, but the sort that becomes gasping, raking animal sounds. On the telephone we would build up a rhythm and humor tension, and before we hung up we were barking and choking. It was a soul orgasm. I used to tell her, "We're adding years to our lives."
We felt immortal back then.
Fifteen years later, I feel deeply mortal. I don't think it's an age thing. I think it's a laughter thing. I just don't do it like I did. No one makes me laugh like Deedee, for whatever reason. With her, I was home. I've tried to find her in others, thought I had a couple of times. But she's not out there. There was only one. Our friendship was perfection, the fit. We built it, admired it openly, talked about how lucky we were.
What I missed most today was picking up the phone. I used to be able to pick it up at any moment and call her. But today, when one of her favorite songs, Danny Boy, came on the car radio, I wanted to share it with her. I considered calling my sister or one of my other friends, started making up excuses, digging up words to say. But no one else could have filled the void.
There was no one to talk to, not the way I wanted to talk. I have friends, and I love them, but they aren't her and today, no one else would do.
As often happens, the thought occurred to me that maybe I might find it again, that perfect friendship fit. Then reality hit, not hard, just a soft nudge. Maybe it was Deedee saying, No, you won't find it again. But that's okay. Once upon a time, it found us.
Still
Did you get
what you asked for
remember now
why you sent your heart
searching
were you asking then
for better or worse
for the up and down of
love
for tiny feet now
cooing, crying
mess, mayhem
were you asking
or remembering
since the heart
sees the future
as a memory
love existing
out of time
as does god
for god is
love
hushing doubt
its longing
only faith could carry
brought us here
to tiny feet
remember now
the vows, the dress
the unrest
the cake, champagne
to overnight
sudden, success
we, us
fade, blur
to family
but look closer, listen
to the question
we are
still
the answer
what you asked for
remember now
why you sent your heart
searching
were you asking then
for better or worse
for the up and down of
love
for tiny feet now
cooing, crying
mess, mayhem
were you asking
or remembering
since the heart
sees the future
as a memory
love existing
out of time
as does god
for god is
love
hushing doubt
its longing
only faith could carry
brought us here
to tiny feet
remember now
the vows, the dress
the unrest
the cake, champagne
to overnight
sudden, success
we, us
fade, blur
to family
but look closer, listen
to the question
we are
still
the answer
Monday, October 28, 2013
Birthdays & Ass Cancer
Today is Julia Robert's birthday. And mine. We were born during "the week of intensity" according to an astrology book I once read. I'd have to agree with that.
I recently found a hard little bump while showering. No, it wasn't a breast mass. It was an ass mass. How humiliating. My first thought was of Farrah Fawcett and her long agonizing death, how Michael Jackson stole her thunder by dying of mysterious causes on the same day.
My second thought was that I had to see this mass up close so yes, I took a picture of it with my cell phone. Then I Googled "anal cancer", saved and compared photos. Then I called Dr. Gerald Bailey, a colon/rectal doctor who shares an office with...wait for it...Horace Butts. Seriously.
I've had every disease and cancer imaginable. In my mind. But this time felt different, like every time does. Still, while you're convinced you may have ass cancer, you think about how things will go. I wondered what my hair would be like when or if it returned after chemotherapy. I nonchalantly asked my hair dresser about her cancer patients' hair and she said, "Their hair is never the same. It's coarse and thinner. So sad."
My vanity kicked in and I panicked. I'd age thirty years after all the stress, chemicals, radiation and weight loss. I'd be suddenly old. With ass cancer.
The day of my appointment with Dr. Bailey, I packed an extra pair of socks. I badly needed a pedicure and didn't want him to see my dry heels. Where were my priorities? He'd be looking at my anus and I was worried about my feet?
Anyway, as I drove in gridlocked traffic to the Houston, Texas medical center, I watched trailers of Farrah Fawcett's Playboy video, All of Me. I'd never seen the video but heard about how ditzy she'd seemed during filming. She had a beautiful body though, at fifty, no less. In one scene she covers her entire naked body in brown paint and rolls gleefully on a giant canvas. She bounces on the canvas, her painted butt leaving a chain of brown smeared ovals. This was a few years before her cancer diagnosis and I wondered if, as she created this legacy on canvas of her rear end, her cancer was already growing.
I drove up eleven stories in the parking garage before finally finding a spot. I'd worn my favorite orange shirt and brought my journal. I was prepared to chronicle the beginning of my cancer journey.
Wanda the nurse took my blood pressure not long after I arrived on the 23rd floor of the Smith Towers building. She sat me in an office to wait for Dr. Bailey. There was nothing in his office except a desk, three chairs, and a creepy painting on the floor (a red, faceless, naked human perched atop a sand-colored staircase leading to an infinite ocean). There was also a drawing hung on the wall, an image of a 19th century doctor sitting beside a dying little girl, her distraught mother weeping, her head down on a wooden table.
In addition to a computer on Dr. Bailey's L-shaped desk, there was a telephone and a book titled The ASCRS Textbook of Colon & Rectal Surgery. A fake ivy sat beside the window.
Because the office was so bare, I suspected he had either just moved in or was soon to move out. That, or he just didn't care.
Maybe he was depressed, or young and fresh out of residency. Or maybe he was older and bounced from job to job in an attempt to stay ahead of a dark past.
When Dr. Bailey entered, I immediately asked, "Is this really your office?"
It wasn't, thankfully, and he promised to show me his real office after the exam. Then I told him I had pictures to show him, certain I was one of his rare proactive patients. "Do many patients take pictures of their masses?"
"You'd be surprised," he answered while typing something into his computer, eyebrows raised. He was an older man, white hair and enough wrinkles that I trusted him. I stood with my cell phone to show him the pictures, enlarging the image with my thumb and forefinger when necessary. He thanked me, cool and calm, then looked back at his computer screen and began to type again. I was just another asshole, but that was okay. He seemed intelligent, experienced, and had a far less depressing office somewhere.
In the exam room Wanda asked me to kneel on what looked like a church kneeler. "You don't have to take your clothes off, just kneel, pull your pants down and bend over."
I waited for her to leave the room so I could have some privacy, but she just stood there. Apparently, Dr. Bailey was outside the room and ready to get started. So I quickly moved to the gray vinyl kneeler, got on my knees, and pulled my pants down mid-thigh. I immediately thought of Sister Christian at Holy Name Catholic School, her long thick paddle, the thwack of the wood against my plaid uniform.
Wanda covered me with something the size of a Bounty paper towel. It fell to the floor just as Dr. Bailey walked in. He joined Wanda behind me, which made me feel like anyone would feel with their pants down and two strangers standing behind them. Then I felt the warmth of a bright light just before I heard the sound of air being pumped into me. It felt like a tire up my butt.
"It looks healthy in here," said Dr. Bailey, the first human to thoroughly investigate my interior terminus. "I think you have a little hemorrhoid with a blood clot. I'm really not worried. Just take a few hot baths and it'll be gone."
I was still bent over, my arms and face resting on gray vinyl in this gray-walled room. But I was seeing color again, even as the doctor scraped my little bump for biopsy. "I guess I can stop Googling Farrah Fawcett now," I said.
"Yes, you can."
Dr. Bailey's actual office was full of credentials, family photos and owl figurines. I'd liked him immediately, even in the dreary first office, but now I adored him. I figured he was old enough to be retired by the time I was old enough to really worry about ass cancer. Therefore this was the last time we would see each other under these particular circumstances. It wasn't a sad thought, just one of those stops you know you'll never make again. Then he said, "You know, you'll need a colonoscopy when you turn fifty next year."
Another reminder that I'm getting, we're all getting, older.
Even so, I am especially grateful on this birthday to know that now is not the time to die. I will not have to shamefully explain to anyone where my cancer was, lose my hair or age thirty years in six weeks, not yet at least. I can plan for another year, schedule that colonoscopy, celebrate not having yet another illness. This gratitude is best described in the following poem, which is about all bliss. Enjoy, and live fully.
Oh, and Happy Birthday Julia.
The feeling is an acoustic guitar and a wooden porch, a crisp spring blue and nowhere to be.
It's a hammock swaying in the steady center of the world.
The mood is lavender in a breeze, laughter like dandelion puffs caught in playful currents.
It's a road without stops, a giant gulp of air, a birthday cake two hundred stories high.
Your heart is wrapped in other hearts, clear skies and eternities.
You were born today.
I recently found a hard little bump while showering. No, it wasn't a breast mass. It was an ass mass. How humiliating. My first thought was of Farrah Fawcett and her long agonizing death, how Michael Jackson stole her thunder by dying of mysterious causes on the same day.
My second thought was that I had to see this mass up close so yes, I took a picture of it with my cell phone. Then I Googled "anal cancer", saved and compared photos. Then I called Dr. Gerald Bailey, a colon/rectal doctor who shares an office with...wait for it...Horace Butts. Seriously.
I've had every disease and cancer imaginable. In my mind. But this time felt different, like every time does. Still, while you're convinced you may have ass cancer, you think about how things will go. I wondered what my hair would be like when or if it returned after chemotherapy. I nonchalantly asked my hair dresser about her cancer patients' hair and she said, "Their hair is never the same. It's coarse and thinner. So sad."
My vanity kicked in and I panicked. I'd age thirty years after all the stress, chemicals, radiation and weight loss. I'd be suddenly old. With ass cancer.
The day of my appointment with Dr. Bailey, I packed an extra pair of socks. I badly needed a pedicure and didn't want him to see my dry heels. Where were my priorities? He'd be looking at my anus and I was worried about my feet?
Anyway, as I drove in gridlocked traffic to the Houston, Texas medical center, I watched trailers of Farrah Fawcett's Playboy video, All of Me. I'd never seen the video but heard about how ditzy she'd seemed during filming. She had a beautiful body though, at fifty, no less. In one scene she covers her entire naked body in brown paint and rolls gleefully on a giant canvas. She bounces on the canvas, her painted butt leaving a chain of brown smeared ovals. This was a few years before her cancer diagnosis and I wondered if, as she created this legacy on canvas of her rear end, her cancer was already growing.
I drove up eleven stories in the parking garage before finally finding a spot. I'd worn my favorite orange shirt and brought my journal. I was prepared to chronicle the beginning of my cancer journey.
Wanda the nurse took my blood pressure not long after I arrived on the 23rd floor of the Smith Towers building. She sat me in an office to wait for Dr. Bailey. There was nothing in his office except a desk, three chairs, and a creepy painting on the floor (a red, faceless, naked human perched atop a sand-colored staircase leading to an infinite ocean). There was also a drawing hung on the wall, an image of a 19th century doctor sitting beside a dying little girl, her distraught mother weeping, her head down on a wooden table.
In addition to a computer on Dr. Bailey's L-shaped desk, there was a telephone and a book titled The ASCRS Textbook of Colon & Rectal Surgery. A fake ivy sat beside the window.
Because the office was so bare, I suspected he had either just moved in or was soon to move out. That, or he just didn't care.
Maybe he was depressed, or young and fresh out of residency. Or maybe he was older and bounced from job to job in an attempt to stay ahead of a dark past.
When Dr. Bailey entered, I immediately asked, "Is this really your office?"
It wasn't, thankfully, and he promised to show me his real office after the exam. Then I told him I had pictures to show him, certain I was one of his rare proactive patients. "Do many patients take pictures of their masses?"
"You'd be surprised," he answered while typing something into his computer, eyebrows raised. He was an older man, white hair and enough wrinkles that I trusted him. I stood with my cell phone to show him the pictures, enlarging the image with my thumb and forefinger when necessary. He thanked me, cool and calm, then looked back at his computer screen and began to type again. I was just another asshole, but that was okay. He seemed intelligent, experienced, and had a far less depressing office somewhere.
In the exam room Wanda asked me to kneel on what looked like a church kneeler. "You don't have to take your clothes off, just kneel, pull your pants down and bend over."
I waited for her to leave the room so I could have some privacy, but she just stood there. Apparently, Dr. Bailey was outside the room and ready to get started. So I quickly moved to the gray vinyl kneeler, got on my knees, and pulled my pants down mid-thigh. I immediately thought of Sister Christian at Holy Name Catholic School, her long thick paddle, the thwack of the wood against my plaid uniform.
Wanda covered me with something the size of a Bounty paper towel. It fell to the floor just as Dr. Bailey walked in. He joined Wanda behind me, which made me feel like anyone would feel with their pants down and two strangers standing behind them. Then I felt the warmth of a bright light just before I heard the sound of air being pumped into me. It felt like a tire up my butt.
"It looks healthy in here," said Dr. Bailey, the first human to thoroughly investigate my interior terminus. "I think you have a little hemorrhoid with a blood clot. I'm really not worried. Just take a few hot baths and it'll be gone."
I was still bent over, my arms and face resting on gray vinyl in this gray-walled room. But I was seeing color again, even as the doctor scraped my little bump for biopsy. "I guess I can stop Googling Farrah Fawcett now," I said.
"Yes, you can."
Dr. Bailey's actual office was full of credentials, family photos and owl figurines. I'd liked him immediately, even in the dreary first office, but now I adored him. I figured he was old enough to be retired by the time I was old enough to really worry about ass cancer. Therefore this was the last time we would see each other under these particular circumstances. It wasn't a sad thought, just one of those stops you know you'll never make again. Then he said, "You know, you'll need a colonoscopy when you turn fifty next year."
Another reminder that I'm getting, we're all getting, older.
Even so, I am especially grateful on this birthday to know that now is not the time to die. I will not have to shamefully explain to anyone where my cancer was, lose my hair or age thirty years in six weeks, not yet at least. I can plan for another year, schedule that colonoscopy, celebrate not having yet another illness. This gratitude is best described in the following poem, which is about all bliss. Enjoy, and live fully.
Oh, and Happy Birthday Julia.
The feeling is an acoustic guitar and a wooden porch, a crisp spring blue and nowhere to be.
It's a hammock swaying in the steady center of the world.
The mood is lavender in a breeze, laughter like dandelion puffs caught in playful currents.
It's a road without stops, a giant gulp of air, a birthday cake two hundred stories high.
Your heart is wrapped in other hearts, clear skies and eternities.
You were born today.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Field (Autism)
In the dream I dig away endless fields of dandelions.
A voice asks who you'd be without them.
I picture a future where the weeds never were, where you marry and grow a son to love as I have.
I meet you there, a future never planted and you're taller than I imagined, stronger than your father, and you tell me not to worry, to make healing tea from forgotten flowers, to dance as the weightless pappus born to trust.
You say a single flower can set another hundred free.
I hold you in the middle of the golden lion's teeth, priest's crowns leaning with invisible winds, then I wake in your blue room, toy trains and cars scattered, your small hand in mine in the only field we know.
A voice asks who you'd be without them.
I picture a future where the weeds never were, where you marry and grow a son to love as I have.
I meet you there, a future never planted and you're taller than I imagined, stronger than your father, and you tell me not to worry, to make healing tea from forgotten flowers, to dance as the weightless pappus born to trust.
You say a single flower can set another hundred free.
I hold you in the middle of the golden lion's teeth, priest's crowns leaning with invisible winds, then I wake in your blue room, toy trains and cars scattered, your small hand in mine in the only field we know.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
The Babes of 2013
It's 8:49 AM on the first day of the new year.
The year looked modern at first, that two thousand in front of the thirteen. But then I imagined what people thought of the new year when it was 1913. How modern did they they feel? What will 2113 feel like?
I just don't believe we're the big shits we think we are. We're just ego fat, overly proud. And this is dangerous.
I woke up this morning thinking about Korea, that their missiles can reach us. I thought of Kennedy and Cuba. I thought about the newly approved tax increase on the "wealthiest Americans" and what Obama's agenda must look like. I'd just woken from a dream about holding a baby boy, my grandchild in the dream, and trying to explain to a stranger how I obtained the child and why he had tattoos all over his forehead -- green snakes and red paisleys, vines and leaves and tiny dots.
Baby new year? Who knows.
Today means black-eyed peas, though no one will eat them beyond the obligatory one bite. We just want luck, that's all. Dumb tradition, but aren't they all? Sweet and dumb. What I should really be doing is making out my Will. I started filling out paperwork over a year ago then stopped. I suppose it was disturbing, giving away my stuff while I'm still alive, planning my burial and such. But it has to be done.
But not today. Maybe next week, or the week after. I'll get to it. I promise myself this. And my tattooed grandchild.
I'll be babysitting my actual grandchild tomorrow, my first, a little girl. Her mother goes back to work and the nanny is already leaving town for four days. So I'll have two month old baby London for three days this week, and we'll see what I can remember about infants. It's only been five years since my youngest was born, but I'm getting old and can't remember much, or maybe I've blocked out the horrors. It's hard to say. I think I'm resting on my laurels, looking back at my work -- four kids -- and feeling like the big shit I'm not. What if my kids were within an inch of their lives all along, and I just got lucky? Or they did. But they didn't know to wish for it, eat peas for it, or that they were small and vulnerable. I don't think any of us are aware of how vulnerable we are until much later on, when we're remembering all the times we drove a little tipsy or slept with the guy whose name we couldn't remember or that time we missed death by a mere micrometer.
We never know exactly how lucky we are, or when that luck will run out.
I had a thought last night, just after midnight while New York was cleaning up all the confetti in Times Square. I imagined living in a war zone. I imagined what other humans consider normal, not natural but normal. A normal nightmare. I imagined what the bombs must sound like, how much cortisol rushes through a targeted population daily. I imagined being hungry, vulnerable, dirty. Homeless.
It took a while to fall asleep but I did, even as a few fireworks continued in the night, illegal here but they happen anyway. It was like the fourth of July, the brand new year, the beginning of what will seem old one day. Those in 2113 won't remember me, will never know I existed, though I fell asleep thinking of them. And wondering about luck.
The year looked modern at first, that two thousand in front of the thirteen. But then I imagined what people thought of the new year when it was 1913. How modern did they they feel? What will 2113 feel like?
I just don't believe we're the big shits we think we are. We're just ego fat, overly proud. And this is dangerous.
I woke up this morning thinking about Korea, that their missiles can reach us. I thought of Kennedy and Cuba. I thought about the newly approved tax increase on the "wealthiest Americans" and what Obama's agenda must look like. I'd just woken from a dream about holding a baby boy, my grandchild in the dream, and trying to explain to a stranger how I obtained the child and why he had tattoos all over his forehead -- green snakes and red paisleys, vines and leaves and tiny dots.
Baby new year? Who knows.
Today means black-eyed peas, though no one will eat them beyond the obligatory one bite. We just want luck, that's all. Dumb tradition, but aren't they all? Sweet and dumb. What I should really be doing is making out my Will. I started filling out paperwork over a year ago then stopped. I suppose it was disturbing, giving away my stuff while I'm still alive, planning my burial and such. But it has to be done.
But not today. Maybe next week, or the week after. I'll get to it. I promise myself this. And my tattooed grandchild.
I'll be babysitting my actual grandchild tomorrow, my first, a little girl. Her mother goes back to work and the nanny is already leaving town for four days. So I'll have two month old baby London for three days this week, and we'll see what I can remember about infants. It's only been five years since my youngest was born, but I'm getting old and can't remember much, or maybe I've blocked out the horrors. It's hard to say. I think I'm resting on my laurels, looking back at my work -- four kids -- and feeling like the big shit I'm not. What if my kids were within an inch of their lives all along, and I just got lucky? Or they did. But they didn't know to wish for it, eat peas for it, or that they were small and vulnerable. I don't think any of us are aware of how vulnerable we are until much later on, when we're remembering all the times we drove a little tipsy or slept with the guy whose name we couldn't remember or that time we missed death by a mere micrometer.
We never know exactly how lucky we are, or when that luck will run out.
I had a thought last night, just after midnight while New York was cleaning up all the confetti in Times Square. I imagined living in a war zone. I imagined what other humans consider normal, not natural but normal. A normal nightmare. I imagined what the bombs must sound like, how much cortisol rushes through a targeted population daily. I imagined being hungry, vulnerable, dirty. Homeless.
It took a while to fall asleep but I did, even as a few fireworks continued in the night, illegal here but they happen anyway. It was like the fourth of July, the brand new year, the beginning of what will seem old one day. Those in 2113 won't remember me, will never know I existed, though I fell asleep thinking of them. And wondering about luck.
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