The Linnet's Wings

My favorite online magazine (I'm the poetry editor) is live with its spring issue. We are going to have it available in print as well, and details about that are posted in the zine. This issue has a story I wrote about my Juilliard days. We haven't used our editors' work since the early issues of The Linnet's Wings, but this spring we decided, "what the hey?" I hope some of you read it. No, I hope all of you read it. 8-}


I listened to an NPR broadcast earlier this afternoon. Tiffany Christianson discussed her book, "Sick Girl Speaks," and I found her to be inspiring, indeed. She has lived with cystic fibrosis since she was a baby, and she has worked hard at living life with a disease. She said that she is not her disease, and discussed how she has learned to separate her symptoms from her spirit.

I want to read her book-because I don't do this. When I have angina, and I do, often, I succumb in spirit to the way I feel. It's as if I'm under the influence of something shameful. The constriction of my arteries becomes a constriction of my spirit and depresses me, but this woman who has had two lung transplants and lives with a daunting list of things that have gone wrong, recognizes them as problems with her body, only.

This is good stuff for anyone with chronic physical dysfunction. We may be people who allow our diseases to diminish us deeply, in our souls, if you will. Why do I, and some of you, do this? My coronary arteries are damaged; my "heart" need not be. Worth thinking about, eh?

My best day at Ramsey High School

It was April of my senior year, second period, French IV. The intercom interrupted Mrs. Plevin reading Moliere. There was nothing unusual about the annoying blare from the Principal's office, but they called my name, which had never happened before. I was told to call home immediately. I got my pass and raced down to the phone booth on the ground floor. By the time Mom answered my call, I had scared myself silly, but she said right away that she had good news and couldn't wait until I got home to tell me. I'd gotten my acceptance letter from the dance department at Juilliard! I was going to New York City! Oh,God, New Jersey,good-by! Finally!!!

Ahem...sorry for all the exclamation points. Later, after I got suburbia out of my system, and could think rationally about my high school years, I realized they could have been a lot worse. I just needed to get some perspective, you know?

From a Zoetrope discussion about probable scientific revelations regarding soul, spirit, God

Yes, well.

The explanation might be forthcoming, and when the people who are investigating explain these things (soul, spirit, God) to me, I'll listen, and I might even understand. Until then I'm happy enough referring to my mystery as my soul.

After the cop and I walked into my brother's trailer, (caravan in the UK?) and found Ric a day dead, my soul sickened, and it hasn't fully recovered.

I know when I danced on stage or alone in the studio, or when the answer to a choreographic phrase "came" to me, (sometimes it seemed directly from the music) my soul felt good, and somehow, big.

All my life there have been moments when my spirit has been shaken by the creativity of others, thank God.

Most of the time I go on with living without feeling moved much at all. But when something does touch me, it's my soul that's stirred. Science may well explain this someday.

When that happens, I might refer to my soul by it's new name, but I imagine I'll be old by then and I'll do what my 88 year-old father does. When there's a bit of new brilliance, he smiles, his eyebrows lift, he gives it a passing nod, and he lets it slide on by.

Akshually I'm glad this came up, and I'm gladder that I thought about it. I've been bored by my own brain lately. xxoononnie

TEXTURES, revised 2/20/09

Wear your grief like soft silk;

a shimmering air-light cloak against your skin.

Then, when the evening star glows

alone through blue-black light,

when perceptions loosen and solitude releases,

cover yourself in the purple velvet of queens and kings.

Let the weight drag against your limbs,

the heavy cloth round your shoulders

until you reach full stop.

Wait-then make the journey back through brocade, damask, satin-

sense again the silky, pliable

mourning-suit that allows you to move.

Inauguration, 09

A friend of mine, Donia Carey, wrote a few minutes ago about how fragile Elizabeth Alexander's fine poem seemed in the maelstrom of the inauguration and the drama of Obama's poetic speech. I thought fragile, too, was the John Williams piece, with it's Aaron Copeland theme, performed by that amazing quartet of musicians. Yo Yo Ma looked like he was having a fabulous time. That's what I love seeing: all these famous people, Obama supporters, looking so happy. Genuinely happy.

The stunning "plane landing safely in the Hudson river" incident seemed like a good omen for this new year, new administration. It so easily could have been tragic news; instead everyone came out of the crash landing and the frigid waters alive and pretty much well.

I'm fairly determined to have a positive attitude toward 2009. Open-minded, prepared for let-down, but hoping for good news. I keep comparing how I feel about things with how I most certainly would have felt if McCain/Palin were sworn in today.

Blizzard

Naked lengths knee to knee,
our bodies warm
while winds gust.

You scootch lower.
Lips, tongue to navel,
seeking heat.

How well we fit-
each limb fierce,
held, holding-
we ignite.


Our forms defy, protect, reel
in sublime time.
Then knee from knee
we separate. Lives wait.

Grief is a Sneaky Bastard

Grief is a sneaky bastard, isn't he? You think, fine. I'm off to get my oil changed when whoa the universe takes a 60 degree downward slope and you're hanging on to a street light to keep from sliding into some crater you know is there waiting because you've already made one or two visits and it's damn hard to climb out, once you're down there. Then too, if you are at all inclined to note the thoughts streaming along with the emotions, you'll be aware that they are all selfish. All about why did he leave us, leave me, just now, now when I wasn't the least bit ready? No one was. And why that horrible way? Alone? In a trailer, for God sakes! Not even a double-wide! Bottles everywhere. Although it did look like he was trying to taper off with beer. Not his roommate. His empties were all squared off heavy glass. Bourbon, I think. And the wanker, the roommate, was gone--never a trace of him again. Did he know my brother was dead before he left? Dunno. Ah, well. It doesn't matter, I guess. Maybe he could have dialed 911. Maybe the bleeding in my brother's brain could have been stopped. Can they stop that sort of internal bleeding once it's begun? More to the point, maybe, is whether Ric would have wanted them to save him one more time. Yes, of course, he would have. He would have wanted to return to us eventually. After one more excruciating detox, fighting hallucinations and sweats, chills and shakes, hauntings and cravings, remorse and self-loathing. He would only have had to make it past that, start with nothing again one more time, try to keep some food down for a while, work day labor before he could stand on his rubber legs properly, and he'd have been all right. Back in the world, coming to Sunday dinner, grilling steaks, using a linen napkin to wipe a blob of ketchup off his face. As it happened--he didn't have to do any of that this time. He fell, made it to his bed, and his brain, which had hit the back of his skull according to the autopsy, (there had to be one because it was an unattended death), started to bleed. They told me he had probably been dead over 12 hours when I found him. That's why he was gray. It's okay that I found him. Somehow I always knew I would be the one to do that. Funny how that, at least, worked out.

Poem about these days

Time Change in Florida

Used to be I’d keep busy.
Dreadful the time I spend sitting, standing,
staring. I lose track, now.

I believe it’s because he died.
It gets hold of me.

I’ll see him half on half off his bed,
a plaid blanket angled over his back and legs,
held tight in his gray fist. I might stop to think
about his being cold on an August Sunday
or I guess Saturday because he’d been dead a day
before I found him.

Time slides by while I rock or sway a bit.
Think about things.

Wonder if I’ll stay slow like this?
Feels like it.

SURAL NERVE BIOPSY

If you don't happen to know where a sural nerve is, or what it does, don't feel alone. None of the swarm of friendly, kind, people in our good hospital's outpatient surgery staff knew about it either. I could hear them discussing it. Didn't bother them-they just kept asking each other until someone knew. I had to laugh at how determined the staff was to get the correct ankle biopsied. Even though the surgeon came in to write a big yes (in permanent marker) on my left leg, they kept checking with me anyway. The whole business went fine and I was home be 1 o'clock, ate a big piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream, and slept the sleep of the heavily drugged all afternoon. I'm fine. I have needed my cane to remain upright, but I was so afraid my heart would act up and they'd keep me overnight, but I was a good patient and got to go home.

Now my little piece of nerve is in Atlanta to be muttered over and tested. I see a new family physician tomorrow and hopefully she'll be the kind of doctor who will read her reports from other doctor's and have some means of knowing which patient is which (or at least good at pretending she knows.)

My brother Peter took me and picked me up. He was talking to the nurse about my "unsteadiness" and he said, "Oh, she's always like that now. But she used to be a ballerina and went to Juilliard." I swear the nurse had tears in her eyes.
You know, it was a moment. xxoononnie

Big Plans

BIG PLANS

Jane was propped up on her elbows, eating a slice of pizza and trying not to get sauce on her friend’s bed. Caroline, sitting at her computer with a slice in hand, complained yet again about submission guidelines.

“They all say the same thing. So boring. Twelve point type, no fancy fonts, word counts need not include the title, blah, blah, blah. Editors are all the same. I’ve discovered a brilliant font. I swear it’s art in itself, but it’s not one of their blessed regulars.

“Really? Did it come with that font software you bought? What’s it called?”

“Yes, really. Yes, it did. And it’s called ‘Mondrian Whirl.’ Totally cool. Here’s my new poem printed in it.”

“I Felt so Alone.” Hey, wasn’t that the name of the last poem you wrote?”

“No-o. That was called, “Loneliness is Misery.”

“Ah. My bad. But you do write about feeling lonely on Sundays in both, don’t you?”

“Yeah. So? Poetry should be about revealing deep shit, shouldn’t it?

“I guess, Caroline," said Jane. “I don’t read much of it. Fushia paper? I hope you’re going to submit it on white?”

“Nope. That’s one of the submissions. The guidelines don’t mention the color of the paper, or of the ink, for that matter. I used shades of green. Show’s up okay, I guess.”

“You’re out of your mind, sweetie. I can’t even read this font, and I want to. Why would an editor struggle with it?”

“They’ll think it’s daring, creative, attention-grabbing. They’ll think a poet who goes this far out on a limb must have something totally cool to say. They’ll think I’m eccentric and interesting without having to read a word. I’m sure that all the editors I send this to will be eager to publish whatever I’ve written.”

“It’s hard to tell, but I think you’ve got a typo here. Maybe.”

“Oh, that. Don’t worry about it--they’ll never notice.”

“You keep saying “they.” How many are you sending? Are you keeping track?”

“I e-mailed it to twenty something places. I pretty much have them all in my head. I hate record keeping. Maybe I’ll start keeping track when I get an acceptance. Like I said, it’s bound to happen soon. My mother always told me I wrote very expressively, and with complexity.”

“Are you writing a new poem, now, while we’re talking?”

“Sure. I can write poetry anytime. It’s my gift.”

“Jeez Louise, Caroline. Sometimes you sound more like a pre-teen than a college sophomore. But what do I know? I’m into math. Thank God.

Crossing the Little Styx

Not long after crossing the Little Styx from "young" to "middle-aged," I started having health problems.  Over the years little has been explained to me about them, I have not been given succinct causes, and I have gotten tired of hearing, "You know, as you age..." I've been stuck with a a growing list of parts that don't work well due to widely unknown reasons, and I've learned to adjust with ill grace and a gnawing sense of guilt. Why guilt? Why, because, we all know that if we had eaten properly, exercised, avoided destructive behavior, undue amounts of stress,  dealt with our emotions constructively, and of course, watched our BMI from birth, our Boomer bodies would not be acting out of spite.

I am, as of today,free of this guilt.  One kind, empathetic, doctor of humanitarian bent, assured me that many of my symptoms originated in my spine, and that arthritis, a pinched nerve, and a herniated disc all presented themselves clearly on an MRI. The news settled in the pit of my stomach last night, probably an unhealthy place for it bed down, but today I woke up feeling better about my poor old self than I have in ages.

When I was four, I saw a ballerina on television. My career choice was made. I started on the path to professional dance that very day. For the next twenty-seven years I did all of the horrible, gorgeous, thrilling things that a dedicated dancer does to her body with a true Scarlett O'Hara attitude. I had to do horrible, painful, fairly demented things to my body and feet in order to accomplish as much as I was able to in my art, and I'm happy today with the memories and glad as hell I "went for it." No regrets. And, by all that's holy (I guess), having a bad back is completely understandable and acceptable to me. So are the tingly feelings in my feet and legs, the fatigue, and the general difficulty I have persuing daily pursuits. If I owe these things in some way to dance, then fine! I wouldn't have skipped a single arabesque.

During a performance, when I was thirty-one, I tore an Achilles tendon. It refused to get better, and after floundering in depression for a few years, I became a teacher of emotionally disturbed children. I did this for fifteen years and during that time I ate-on-the-run, exercised but improperly, did not avoid self-destructive habits, had an undue amount of physical and psychological stress, swallowed tons of emotion, and had a dangerously low, then suddenly a risky-high, BMI. And guess what? No blame there, either. I'm glad I did that job for the years I did it. I hope I did the children some long-lasting good, but I know I did myself good that far outreaches the aches and pains, yes, even the "bad heart," that I'm saddled with now.

In short, (not my strength) the slings and arrows that brought me to this creaky place were invited by me to do so, and I will not be a hypocrite about them. I didn't exactly live the life of Jack Sparrow, but, as I believe would be true of him if he were real, I can say with honest fervor, that I'm glad my "young" and the young part of my "middle" years went just the way they went. Thank you Dr. Crayton.

Monday, Blessed Monday

O Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay! I have found my treasure and I am grateful. Grateful, I say. It doesn't matter really to whom; maybe it's to the spirit of Lewis Carroll-or, more likely, my Mom. But the treasure reappeared, and I believe I had help. Can't convince me otherwise-because I won't listen.

Did You Do This?

Did you ever lose a treasure? Not in a disaster, a flood or a fire, but just on a regular Saturday evening? Something like a diamond chip and gold cross that your father gave your mother for her high school graduation in 1938? And now she's been dead for a year and a half and you've worn that cross every day since she died-not because it was a cross but because it was hers and it became your talisman? Something she had given you for your Juilliard graduation, but took back years later because she was afraid, when your drinking was bad, that you'd lose it? And now you have? Have you ever lost something like that? Felt so bereft, that at the moment you're not sure you'll be the same woman from now on that you were only a few hours ago? Wouldn't you keep looking, even though you feel that it's gone from your neck, wrist, finger, wherever your treasure had its home? Wouldn't you be unable to stop and examine each sparkle or flash of gold that you see out of the corner of your eye? Sometimes in ridiculously unlikely places? Impossible places? Or maybe your treasure was a paper, or a picture, and you are doomed to scan all the paper, picture fragments you spot? In spite of yourself? Did you feel guilty? Even though, of course, it isn't really proof of your carelessness, lack of discipline, lack of feeling? Then, at some point, did you think, maybe the priceless object will continue to have a life, will have meaning you can't imagine, to its finder? Did you find some small comfort in this thought? I wonder, did you?

December Wishlist

I don't know many of you. Maybe, if you were all live pine needles  or carpeting the forests of the world , I'd know a smidgeon of one of you. Even with the assumption we've never met, I can still have a wish or thousand for you. 

I can wish that, if you have an addiction, you seek help and recovery from it before it destroys you or your co-dependents. 

If you have children who are in danger from guns, gangs, or poverty, that they survive long for a shot at a good life. 

There are a lot of gadgets that you don't need but might want, and there are handbags that will steal thousands of dollars from you. I wish that you don't get these things because they will diminish you one way or another in the long run.  

If you can't get to sleep at night, because of pain, guilt, worry, or self-pity, I wish you would be able to sleep as soon as your head hits your pillow. I wish you a "just right' pillow. 

If you are holding back, I wish you become a person who gives forth.  

If there is a committee meeting in your mind that is messing with your will, I hope you can kick the creeps out so that you can listen to the single, sure voice that is yours. If your true voice is distorted or mad, I wish that it would become clear, comforting, and aware of the truth. 

 Truth exists. It's easy to ignore because it can either be quite soft spoken or so intense that you may not care to acknowledge it, but truth  exists and loves to be discovered by you. 

I wish that you are able to understand the people, places and things around you and that you learn which of these is of most value to you; I wish too, that on more than just a few marvelous occasions, the people in your life understand you. 

If you are alone, I wish it to be your preference, and if you are trying to feel less alone, I hope you succeed. 

I wish that you enjoy having the nose you were born with, and that you and your body are on reasonably friendly terms. 

Maybe if I stop writing now, I'll be able to sleep; I'm rather tired. I wish you a good night's sleep.

Oh, of course, I wish that someday soon, (tomorrow!) that you are able to live in a  peaceful world. Good-night, stranger mine.

BAD DAY IN THE SUNSTATE

So today  go car shopping with one of my two wimmen friends here in PC Bleach. We drive an hour to a cute country town that has a dealership with good ads in the local rag. I gets in a cream, Lincoln Town Car Executive Suite series or some damn thing . It's the most wonderful car I've ever even dreamed of driving let alone driven. Interior dove gray leather with tortoisehell dash doodads, a sound system that makes Jimmy Buffet sound ike poor dead Pavorotti, 20mpg's in town, $9,500 which I coulda gotten to $9000 because he started at $9,900, and 80,000 on it, which I own up to is a lot of miles. Kathy says she can see my head glowing as I maneuver this dreamboat (I know what that means, finally) out of a wildly crowded parking lot, even though the car is twice the size of the Cavalier 24Z I'm used to driving-WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT. I don't want to drive a big car, but my Aged P can't bend his knees almost at all. He could slide into the back seat of this baby and his knees would barely have to creak. So I call derr Papa. NO!  In his best Christopher Walken voice he hoarsely shouts, YOU DON'T NEED A BIG CAR, YOU NEED A LITTLE CAR THAT GETS 75 MPG FOR CHRISSAKES, and I says, BUT I NEED THE ROOM FOR YOU AND I CAN MANAGE THE COST. And he says, NO! YOU CAN'T AND DON'T MAKE ME A FACTA IN THIS. I'M NOT A FACTA.  And I says well, then I might as well stick with the car I've got and you'll just have to bend your knees even though you can't, but of course he can't hear me he says and I hang up my friend's phone because I've lost another miniscule black cell fucking phone and she knows I'm upset and EMBARRASSED!

And my Dad and Brother P who I also live with don't think WE NEED A DOG either! But I do. I don't have anyone to sleep with. Do they understand this? Not is what I think.

So I get home and I'm gonna pout, you know, but Papa asks me if I've HAD ANYTHING TO EAT ALL DAY!  And I answer him POFUCKINGLITELY even though I'm thinking OF COURSE I KNOW PEOPLE NEED TO @##$$ EAT!

And then Brother R calls and needs my help immediately and begs and I cash a check for him and he tells me he knows a guy with the same kind of Lincoln with 212,000 miles on it and HE'S STILL DRIVING IT!

So then I'm back with my family house-mates (ha) making them turkey tetrazinni and I can't even stay mad enough not to make my father a hot toddy for his cold.

And then, I try to order Christmas cards from the Met for derr Walken Papa and they take on $20 bucks to the discounted la-di-da price for shipping and HANDLING! WHAT'S WITH HANDLING?  So I cancel and we will not have Childe Hassan Christmas cards from the Met, if you don't mind for CHRISSAKES! Sheesh!

Cultural Literacy

I taught special education in public and private U.S. schools for fifteen years and during that time probably gave fifteen hundred tests. A phrase I came across, again and again, was “cultural literacy.” There were, and are, facts, figures, fantasies, questioned on basic skills tests, i.e.; I.Q. tests, PSATs SATs, and even GREs exams for children and young adults. What do we mean by “the cradle of civilization,” Victorian society, and who were James Joyce, Horatio Alger, Daffy Duck, and Marie Curie? Who was Al Capone? These are the sorts of things we wish a college graduate to know, it seems. in addition to quantum physics or fluency in Arabic.

When I was a seventh grader in a parochial elementary school in suburban New Jersey, I took one of these tests, and my reading score was the same as a sophomore in college. I did not skip any grades. I had not been brought up traveling the world, and I certainly was no genius. But I grew up in an atmosphere of conversation about current events, fiction and non-fiction reading, and parental regard and encouragement. Wherever our interests lead us, within reasonable parameters, my mom and dad urged us (three brothers and myself) to journey.

Life magazine’s arrival by mail every week was an important happening in our household, possibly eclipsed by the monthly appearance of National Geographic. Ed Sullivan was “must see T.V.” and I’ll never forget my father’s laughter over Sid Ceasar and his Show of Shows. We had Rod Serling and we had the yearly showing of The Wizard of Oz and Mary Martin’s Peter Pan. There were also nights devoted to reading, homework, and or discussion, and everyone in the family, including my mother and father, were involved in these activities.

I’ve already written in The Linnet about my Nonnie, and her fabulous treasure trove of fairytales, nursery rhymes and songs, but there were also uncles, (Jerry was a soft-shoe dancer), aunts, cousins, my other grandparents, and my brothers, their friends, and of course my friends who shared what they knew in a mysterious carousel of knowledge. There was my ballet teacher. My father painted in oils. My mother took me to plays. Everyone, everyone read. And, yes, everyone talked about what they read.

Have I mentioned school yet? Not very much, have I? Hmmmm. Could it be cultural literacy, even then, had little to do with school and everything to do with family? The first volume of The Great English Poets didn’t sit among the picture books on my second grade classroom bookshelf. It sat in our living room. In a bookcase right next to the television.

The Underclass Keeps it All Up

i'm not a sociologist, nor an anthropologist, nor a psychologist. I'm not an ologist of any kind. Just so you know.

What I am is fed up with sad. There is entirely too much sad and there are way too many addicts. Sadly. I remember dancing to records about going to San Francisco. Believing I would get out of the burbs one day and that I would at that point be able to join the singers, painters, lovers who were busy making the world hum. When I did get to Berkely, in the mid-seventies, I saw yuppies and drug addicts. Drank cappuchino and stepped around the meth freaks as they ranted. Where did all those drugs come from, anyway?

There were the strong, sexy sixties, with remarkably unified voices protesting racism, military industrial war-mongering, poverty, then the war ended in Vietnam, Watergate happened, and a whole bunch of drugs came into the country and blasted the living brains out of some brilliant heads.

The same people are poor. The same dealers rule the streets. The same wars are fought for profit and adventure, and the people who populate the underclass are stil stoned, or trying to get stoned, or in prison or hospitals because they got stoned or got caught (!) doing something stupid. I put that cute little parenthetical exclamation point there because that seems so silly to me. The people committing crimes are not very well hidden. How do they decide which ones to catch, say, on Thursday mornings?

I'm fed up with sad. One of my family members married a woman who is addicted to crack. She was clean when they met, but crack is very good at keeping the people down. The drug doesn't leave anybody who has had a fling with it alone for long, apparently. She will be going to jail soon. She should already be there, but her current legal status is as mysterious as is the fact that crack is there for her, right where she expects it to be, right where everyone in this city knows it is, any time she wants it. Why is that, I wonder? It's a strange reality to get a fix on, isn't it? The underclass has, and knows, it's place, and the other classes are just glad it all keeps working out.

Noddleheadism

About fifteen years ago, I started having strange sensations in my arms and legs, double vision, sundry weirdnesses. So, I went through a gazillion tests, mostly aimed at ruling out Multiple Sclerosis, ended up seeing a rheumotologist at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D. C. and he had no trouble at all diagnosing me with fibromyalgia. Well, that seemed rather a vague thing to me, and I was a busy teacher, and fed up with going to doctors for tests that were inconclusive, so I decided, "Oh, well!" and put the whole business in one of the junk drawers in my mind.

Then in 2000, I was diagnosed with heart disease, had open heart surgery and an endarectomy (spelled more or less correctly) and that became a prime time health concern. I eventually went on disability, in fact, because the root problem (tiny arteries) could not be surgically treated.

This past summer, my stomach made her debut as a leading player in health dramas. Again many tests, a cancer scare, and finally, I end up with a rheumotologist again! (Who happened to be black and I very nearly said, pleased and surprised, "Oh, wow, a black doctor in Panama City, Florida!") And lo, and behold, he diagnosed me, without hesitation, ordering blood tests, or any tests for that matter, with fibromyalgia and he said that I'd probably had it for a long time. Duh.

I said, "So it's a real thing?"
"It's real, he answered."
"You know, I've heard that before, but I honestly forgot."

He handed me a pamphlet, and it was all about me. I have heart disease, and I have fibromyalgia. That's it. I'm done. I know what is wrong, I can explain weird things about my body to myself or to anyone else who needs to know, and I can carry on. What a thing!

Soul-Soothing Seaport

On Friday, October 5, a nurse told me over the phone that I did not have cancer. She gave me this news without shouting, She was casual, downright breezy when she informed me that "everything looks fine." What an odd thing. I've never been in a position to tell someone they did not have cancer, but knowing myself as I do, I imagine that if I were, I would be pretty damn excited when I delivered the news. Oh, well. We don't need nurses at the other end of the phone to share our joy, do we? But wouldn't it be a fine thing if they did?

So. Knowing I did not in fact have to face dealing with cancer, I decided I'd better do something about my dog-my heart, "Baby," (she came to me with the name) an impossibly sweet Maltese, had not been eating for a week. I would search for signs that my fourteen year old dog was just "off her food." Baby, too, did her best to deny the state of her affairs. She put on an eager show when it was time for a walk, our routine demonstrations of mutual love and friendship seemed almost normal on both our parts-I didn't let her know I was worried, and she tried to hide how badly she was feeling. We managed until I got the biopsy report, and then it seemed like my dog and I both knew it was time to pay the piper. Baby not eating was a clear, serious, extradordinary signal that all was not well with her health. So I took her to the vet that day. And later that day, because she had acute renal failure and wouldn't recover, I held her while she was euthanized.

If you love a pet, you know how I felt when she died. If you don't, or never have, you will not understand and there's simply nothing I can do about that. So be it.

A week later I took a short trip, by myself, to the small seaport town of Apalachacola. I stayed in an elegant Edwardian B & B for two nights and enjoyed the off-season ambiance and incredible October weather. The second afternoon I drove to St. George Island, across two fabulous bridges from Apalach, a drive covered in fifteen minutes, walked on the nearly empty beach on the Gulf of Mexico, and said good-by to my dog.

Seafood, antique shops, privately run bookstores, coffe houses, all these favorite things helped ease me into acceptance. Baby had driven from Maryland to Florida with me when I made the trip to try and get my sick mother's medications straightened out. She'd waited while I climbed in the window of a drunken brother's apartment so that I could see if he was still breathing, and when I opened the door for her, she insisted that he wake up and smile at us. A few years later, when I left my husband, Baby drove south with me again, and settled into our lives as care-givers of elderly parents. She was my assistant, providing the daily dose of comic relief.

Enough! Anyone reading this who understands, understands. Of course I was delighted to find out I didn't have cancer, although I still felt, and feel lousy, but it was almost unbearable to then hold my dog while she received her lethal injection. I am hoping life does not offer two such experiences in the same day again.

As far as the travel diary portion of this blog entry goes, Apalachicola is a gem, The Coombs House Inn a gracious, tasteful retreat, and there simply isn't weather any better than sunny October days on the Florida panhandle, If there is someone you need to say good-by to, or someone you need to share some loveliness with, I heartily recomment Apalachacola-home to the inventor of air-conditioning and 90% of the country's oysters-Florida

Eve of a Biopsy

Eve of a Biopsy

Tomorrow morning I’m having a biopsy done. My uterine lining has thickened when it should have thinned. I’ve been feeling lousy for a couple of months, so something must be going on down there. I haven’t been privy to the information, however. A teenaged gyn is going to have to tell me. Odd, isn’t it? That so often we are the last to know exactly what is happening in our own bodies. There are ultra sound techs, radiologists, pathologists, nurses, and doctors who all get the news before we do. They’ll take a sample of the tissue tomorrow, but it will still be days before I know the result. Maybe another whole week will go by.

I wouldn’t mind waiting if it weren’t for the inevitable mind games. Because I haven’t been feeling well, I don’t tell myself, “Shoot, it won’t be anything.” I want there to be some information out of all of this-information that will lead to my feeling better.

I also say, “You know that this will at least mean a hysterectomy, so there will be _ _ _ _ _time out for surgery and recovery." Then, there is the, “Oh God, what if they want me to go through radiation and chemo, and my hair falls out and I’m sick all the time for months? In and out of various medical venues, shlepping around? Ycch.”

The fatalist in me gets some prime time, too. “You have cancer everywhere, dear, and will be dead in six weeks, tops.” If I follow that thought path for more than a few seconds, I can actually get cheerful about it. You know, thoughts of spending the money set aside for older age on a fabulous cruise and flamboyant living. That’s tricky, though. For that line of perusal to work, I have to be feeling good for the duration of the “living in the lap of luxury,” portion of life left to me. I want to be looking my best, too, as I cruise the Aegean or the Scandinavian fjords.

Okay, I think-I’ll just stock up on painkillers and symptom relievers so that I’ll feel fine while dying. Oh. Shit. I didn’t mean to actually write that. Silly me. Of course, it won’t come to that. Of course the biopsy will indicate an annoying course of life-saving measures that will assure me my old age allotment. Which is what we are supposed to want, right? Long life at all costs? At all costs? All costs?

Must I think that is what I want? Will the health police shackle me to an IV pole if I politely refuse to pursue the dream of a healthy, happy old age, via a miserable, indeterminate time of abominable, noxious, treatment? I don’t have children to worry about or worry. And honestly, I can’t love the people I love any more or in a better fashion than I already do, so I’ve clear-sailing, conscience-wise, as far as they go.

I wonder if the thoughts I’m having about it all are quite normal. My inclination is to think that people do think this way on the eve of a biopsy. Never mind how foolish I’ll feel when I get the news, as I surely will, “Oh, nothing to worry about-just a little this or that. Take two aspirin and see me again in three weeks, but please don’t call.”

If they say the other thing, will I have the courage to beg off treatment? Even if the odds are bad, I think we are all expected to say, “Yes, doctor. Do with me what you will.”
I might much rather say, “Right. I’ll just take a prescription or two, get them filled, and enjoy a wonderful change of season. Autumn can be so beautiful.”

I’m kind of curious about what might be beyond the veil of this life. I can’t conceive of emptiness, so I’m really not expecting it. I can’t imagine myself not being, so I’m not afraid of that. I’m dead certain that if we are all indeed going through some kind of preliminaries, the Main Event will be well-worth the training, the waiting, the practise, and that those flashes of brilliance we've all experienced, however briefly, are trailers for the brilliance that is to come.