Bugs

Asanga fruitlessly tried to achieve enlightenment for many years, doing all the things, as my pilates teacher says (“Ladies! Today we’re going to do all the things!”) You know, sitting in caves for three years, helping people move mountains with spoons, etc. He didn’t have a breakthrough. So he gave up.  

He wandered around and one day, a thin, mangy dog, covered in sores came up to him on the outskirts of a village. The sores were covered in maggots. How to help the dog. He looked at the maggots squirming in the sores and was filled with revulsion and pity.  He was angry, too. Didn’t the people who lived in the village see this animal on a daily basis?  How did they let this happen? This poor animal. His rage seemed to fixate on the maggots, twisting in the poor animal’s flesh. He took a corner of his robe, intending to fling the maggots to the ground. Then what. Stomp on them, he guessed. He just wanted to get the dog clean.  He bent down to do so, and paused.  There were the maggots, small, pearly translucent. Compelling in a strange way.  He thought of human infants, who are helpless, and just seek sustenance. If he picked them up, he would crush them. Too fragile for human touch. Why be angry? After all, he’d seen maggots on dead things before without this much emotion.  The dog whimpered, looked up at him. His anger at the maggots receded. He took out his knife and shaved off a slice of the surface skin of his thigh. It hurt like hell. He’d worry about dressing it later.  “I’m going mad,” he thought to himself. “The Eightfold path.” He felt a giggle arising inside him. The dog stared at him patiently.  Then Asanga, thigh smarting, knelt down.  “Lie down.” He told the dog.  The dog complied.  “I’m going to do this, and then I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he told the dog. “Because now I’m really crazy.”  He put his face next to the first sore, and gently licked, the maggots transferring effortlessly to his wet, soft tongue.  Then he carefully deposited the little group onto his fresh piece of flesh.  He did this until all the maggots were off the dog.  Then he took the strip of flesh and moved it off the road, onto some soft grass, away from traffic.  He watched the maggots, mewling around, going about their business, unaware of their preservation.  After all, he thought, all they want to do is live. Like every doomed being in this land.” The dog nuzzled his thigh. “Ouch. Stop that.”Asanga said. He looked down at the dog. “How’d you get up?”

And now Asanga had a dog.

Ok, that’s not the story, exactly.

The Zen versions I’ve heard say that Anaya achieved enlightenment. Other Buddhist versions way he saw the Bodhisattva, Maitreya.

I bring this up because I’ve been thinking about Asanga lately.  I’ve had three encounters with bugs sitting on the toilet in the bathroom, early in the morning.  The first was a cockroach.  I hate cockroaches.  I’ve got all sorts of trauma associated with this which I won’t go into here. It felt my gaze, and calmly hid under a soap dish.  I rarely see cockroaches in my house.  Believe it or not, I’ve evolved into a pretty clean person.  Never saw that coming. The nursing, probably.  I thought.  Ok.  I’ll pretend I didn’t see you.  I wish you well, a la Gwyneth Paltrow.  

The next day, I saw him again.  This time on the floor.  Again, I think he felt my gaze, because he edged himself beneath the heater.  I’m pretty sure it was the same bug.  He moved pretty slowly for a cockroach. Pretty secure there, aren’t you kid?  I thought.

The following day, there he was again, but this time he was having some trouble.  He seemed to have got a cat whisker stuck on his back foot.  I watched him try to move across the floor and I thought, “shit,” and, reader, I scooped him up on a piece of toilet paper (the whisker made him easy to catch), removed the whisker and placed him on the porch.

Ruined.

Enlightenment is never one thing. And sometimes it is only one thing. Gassho.

Anniversaries

 Today is the anniversary of my first marriage. 

31 years ago today, I drove down two-lane roads in Arkansas, autumn peaking in the Butler Mountains, with a young man I hardly knew, in an ‘87 Chevy Impala, drunk with love and the thrill of derailment. Incredible.

My current husband (that sounds really awful, doesn’t it?) is having surgery.  He’s having a lumbar decompression performed by my boss.  All the men I have spoken of so far are Catholic and are a mix of. Eastern European and Irish heritage. What that means, I’m not sure.  I form partnerships, both romantic and professional, with a certain phenotype?

Jay broke his back in 1976 free-soloing a fairly easy climb. (Watch out for anything you think is going to be easy—you don’t give it enough respect).  He was in a body cast for 6 weeks.  They wanted to perform surgery, but he rehabbed his way out of it. Periodically, he would get slammed with back and leg pain, but would always master it.  Last year, he and his climbing partner took one of their lightning strike climbing trips out to Vedauwoo, driving without stopping from Paloma, climbing without stopping once they got there, and, upon his return, he had lower back and leg pain he couldn’t seem to shake. We tried everything, but…here we are.

I know too much about this.  I know they are running into scar tissue, and that his nerves are going to be adhered to the dura. I know that, although everyone thinks this will be easy and simple, they are underestimating this. I hope I’m wrong, but it’s taking longer than it usually does…I’ve assisted on probably a thousand of these procedures.

I took a walk at 730, which is about when they would have made the first incision. I walked for about an hour.  There’s a little park close to the hospital that not too many people know about.  It’s deliciously wild, with creeks and rocks and woods and a lovely trail.  I walked for 30 minutes, turned around and got back to the waiting room by 0830, which is when we would usually finish. Well, my surgeon would be done, and I would finish closing.

It’s the same park I walked in the morning my father died.  Only I went left then.  It was dark. Maybe 4 or 5 in the morning? I should remember the time, but I don’t. Oh, wait. I do. 451. The moon was up—a waxing crescent.  My father once told me that when he died, I would see four crows and one would fly away, and that’s how I would know he had died.  But I didn’t see any crows.  I did see 11 sleeping vultures in a barren sycamore tree.  I’ve always had a secret affection for vultures.  I was the only one on the trail. It was pretty cold.  Nick drove all night from New Orleans. My father, who had lapsed into a coma, whose heart rate had slowed to 30, did not leave us until Nick was in the room with him.

So, here I am in the same waiting room. And that’s my half hour…

Pilgrimages

 Well, Wynonna canceled, I guess. Which was fine. The casino still let us play. Four hours across Iowa, which is like driving in a Thomas Hart Benton mural, or a David Spear painting, if either had been microdosing psilocybin. Our well imploded, so I had to go by myself. The Buick is the right kind of car for that landscape, and Siri took me on the back roads—green hills and corn and blue blue skies. Amish women with nestled kids on carriages, driving briskly and competently on the shoulders, shocks of red blonde hair on the kids under their bright straw hats, the color of sorghum, clipping along. Thought about Wiz, my old boss, who once belonged to them, and who hated them with every fiber of his being, but gave it up, and just thrilled to the sight. What a world. Tried to picture Wiz as a kid in a little straw hat, and found it was surprisingly easy to do.

Surprised the rest of the band by arriving early. The casino is this surprising complex, well-ordered. If Iowa ran the casino industry, this is what it would be. Kind of wholesome. Workers coming off their shift, overheard snatches of conversation: “Well, they gave him a little bit of power and now he’s getting ahead of himself. Brad is not MY direct report.” Shook my head. Everywhere somebody has a Brad.  

A lovely older man in a sport coat greeted us. His name was Martin. He reminded me of Michael Caine, if Michael Caine had grown up in Iowa. He had this air of genial reassurance that I’ve found in very successful CEO’s, crime bosses, and concierges at the best hotels—he was a pleasant MX missile.  He could handle any situation—big or small. What a gift, right? My husband has a little bit of that. He just sails into situations, gets everyone calm, gets the best price…Papa’s here. We can all relax.

Our band leader, who has never (until now!) played a gig sober, made the mistake of asking him how strict the casino’s policy ACTUALLY was on alcohol for the band—“Come on, Martin—it’s not that strict, right? I mean, I could get a cocktail—would that be cool?”  I tried to catch Teech’s eye—-warn him—-no luck. Alcoholics are always delusional.  

“Well,” Martin said, kindly, “the management’s very strict on that, and they do check surveillance after to make sure rules weren’t broken—of course…what you do in your room is none of my business.  Just don’t nail the furniture to the ceiling.”

“They check it after? You shitting me?”

“Oh, yes…” Martin nodded. “Strict.”

“That’s crazy, dude. I don’t know how you deal with that.” Teech shakes his head. “Ok, well, cool.”

Martin stuck around, watched our sound check. Grinned broadly.

“You work hard up there.” He said. Which is what people always say to me, because I’m not very good at this, but I’m friendly and nice, and they want to be kind.

“Did someone actually nail the furniture to the ceiling?” I asked.

“Yes, they did. Now what’s the situation about your room? I heard you reserved and paid for your own? We need to fix that.” He walked me over to the desk and had the charge erased. Of course, Martin is actually the owner of the casino.

The gig went off without a hitch. Amazingly, the Billies are pretty tight when they’re not…tight. Haha. I never drink. You can’t play the violin drunk.  Well, you can, I guess, but not very well and I need every edge I can muster A teeny group of fans showed up. Who knew? Wearing band t-shirts! Telling each other stories.  Talking about the Roadkill Orchestra. A lady with an oxygen tank and a walker got up and shook her booty to “Hell Has Come.” Rat pulled a clunker on a key change on the bass in one of our new songs, but, we were seriously almost error free. Our lead guitarist arrived fresh from fighting fires out west, bristling with prana.  Jay arrived at gig time. We messed with the electric curtains in the room, made love, had a good dinner after. I made sure to tip extravagantly.

Driving home, we stopped in the little town next to the casino, which is where James T. Kirk will be born in two hundred years, and paid our respects.

AND I decided to swing by Fairfield on my way home, to visit the Maharishi University, which was sort of like a cross between Moberly Community College and Sewanee, but with less money. I don’t know what I was expecting. I walked around in the Iowa summer heat.  The campus is very diverse—students of all nationalities—all carrying little clear green lunch pails. Lots of smiling (well, I should hope so). Effusive greetings on the path—“Hello!  How are you?” It felt like a place that the Tick might have attended before he became a superhero.  I dropped by the Palace of Peace, took off my shoes, stood in the foyer. To my right I could hear a meditation instruction class in progress.  A girl started talking about the disturbing dreams she’d been having over the past week about past traumas, and I felt that I shouldn’t be listening to this, that it wasn’t meant for my ears. No one knew I’d walked in. I put my shoes back on and left. Meditated for 20 minutes on a bench on the grounds. Then drove towards home.

On the way back home, I stopped by 504 Vine in Macon, which was the house my great grandmother and my grandmother grew up in. It’s falling into ruin. I walked into the back yard toward the railroad tracks, where my great grandmother would practice her violin, because it drove everyone in the house crazy. She ended up first chair for the St. Louis symphony—the first woman to sit with them. She married a doctor at 44, had a baby (my grandmother) and developed crippling RA during the pregnancy, which ended her playing forever. The porch is gone, but I know where she used to sit, because I have her journals, and she describes the corner exactly.  I left a peach on it, to feed her hungry ghost. And mine. Or any others who might be drifting around that lawn, or sitting on that porch, in the late summer twilight.

Oh, one hour today.

The Woods

 There are good things about the lake and bad things about the lake. Good things: it’s water. Sunsets are pretty. Herons. Good breezes.  Bad things: it’s “The Lake.”  This stringy, hillbilly shellac prevalent down there. Real estate agent couture. It’s mine, by right and birth, but I don’t quite get it. 

Played a gig last night—sat in with a group from LA. The guitarist was my age, and trying to hide it (isn’t this the case with all these terrific guitarists in these B bands from out of town?) intelligent, despairing, slightly crazed, that coke-y energy you start channeling when your joy dries up. But some real kindness and some honest frustration.  We didn’t have a rehearsal prior to the gig. I’m not a professional.  I’m a nice person with a good ear, good vibrato, a rotten bow arm, and unusual ideas about what the fiddle should do. I’m not a virtuoso by any means, but I don’t play like anyone else, but it speaks to some. I’m in a band, a wonderful, crazed, soulful, hard-living group and we have become mysteriously good. We are actually going to be opening for Wynonna Judd.

Back to last night. The guitarist’s name was Lucian. He sat down with me right before we went on:

“Ok—on this one—the timing of the chorus is a little odd—what you have to remember is—it’s just a 5 turnaround.”

“Oh, Ok. “ I said nodding. “5 turnaround.  Got it. “ 

He moved on, but my conscience kicked in.

“Lucian, I’m really sorry, but what is a ‘5 turnaround’?”

To his credit he tried to cover it. But, I am a clinician. I work 5 inches away from surgeons over a spinal cord, so nuance is everything.

He explained it to me. Then he paused.  “I know I seem like an asshole,” he said. “But I’m really not.”Which of course gave away how he really felt.

The gig commenced. We were opening for someone famous—young, hot, country star. Pretty girls around the green room. “Who are you? Are you with….?”

Incessant coaching from Lucian through the show.  Finally, on the last two numbers, I though, “Fuck it. This band isn’t going to ever have me play for them again, and I’m going to play the fuck the way I play. My friend Ben Bushman, another crazed fiddler, calls it ‘being in the woods.” So off I went. I have a lot of hair, which keeps me from having to make eye-contact with people.

When I met Ben Bushman, the fiddler I admire most, it was at a house concert.  I knew he would play after us, and the fiddler that comes next is ALWAYS better than I am.  After we played, he came up to me and stared at me. We looked into each other’s eyes for a very long time.  He shook his head.  “I always thought you were just some nice lady,” he said, “But you’re in the woods.  You’re deep in the dark woods, just like me.”

That’s my half-hour.   But I’m actually going to learn what a ‘5 turnaround’ is after this.

Nick’s Birthday

 Lilly’s visiting. She’s just like she always is. I haven’t seen her in a year.  We’ve been separated by the pandemic. She’s long and lean and lovely and therapy-ed. Her face has changed a little.  Something in the relationship of the cheekbone to the corner of her mouth. A little thinner or harder. She has endless energy for pondering, chatting, musing, listening. The first week, she sort of collapsed and reverted to her 11 year-old self, but now she’s more adult.  Taking the dogs on walks, working from the upstairs bedroom, zooming with her sweetheart.  For my part, her presence is a deep and lovely comfort, and I feel a little thrum of happiness which seems to be a baseline, background comforting hum, like a purr.

Already I regret her absence. I regret not looking at her deeply enough, not inhaling her, spending more time with her.  

I’m trying to keep my weight under control. I’ve signed up for an online program called NOOM on the advice of my acupuncturist. I lost 20 pounds doing keto for a year, but then, at my last check-up, my liver was funny, so I’m backing away.  I feel guilty doing this, given Lilly’s problems with anorexia in the past and I know how she views this sort of thing. So I feel funny over this separating force. I need to mention that I am eating Cheez-Its as I am writing this and it’s 838 am on a Sunday morning.  That’s like waking up and putting gin on your grape nuts, as far as I’m concerned. One of the things Lilly does is have snacks all over the house, so she can just munch on things mindlessly, which keeps her weight normal.  Who on earth gets to do that?

Jay likes Lilly, too, but the walls are thin in this house and you can hear what goes on in the other rooms.  So sex has been rare.  He got so frustrated he rented a room in the Hampton Inn across from the hospital last Thursday. It worked out. We made love, sat in the whirlpool tub in the room, felt sneaky and guilty.  It was lovely. We were home by 8.

She’s writing. Comedy bits, since the stand-up has come to a (rim shot) stand still. She’s also done some videos. Her stuff is hilarious. Zany, pee-in-your pants stuff. She was reading one of her bits to me in McDonald’s (Lilly goes to McDonald’s) and I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. It’s about a guy who uses his pandemic time to go into the woods and write a rock opera, and he comes up with a character named O’Reilly and, when he performs it for the first time, he realizes that he’s actually re-written the Macarena and the O’Reilly auto parts commercial. 

This place can really knit you back together. Potato, the very present Australian Shepherd, Latke, his scrappy lab-esque girlfriend—the three cats, the hill that rolls away from the house and pond. The fields greening up around us. Peepers at night, birds in the morning, owls at twilight. Tulips on the table.  

New York assumed this terrifying chaotic impenetrability in my mind this year.  I couldn’t get Lilly to leave. It was the city of death. How I longed to have her here, safe.  So one month of quiet for Lilly, home to heal.  Nick’s 30th birthday was on Friday. Jay was on a shoot, so it was just the three of us. I got out the old dragon table cloth, the one we use for every celebration, that I made for Nick’s third birthday out of an old sheet, when we didn’t have any money, and he requested a birthday with “dragons and trains.”  I spread the project out on the courtyard of our apartment in Little Havana, and at one point, 2 year old Lilly ran across it, dipping her tap shoe (and Lilly’s tap shoes are a story in and of themselves) in the paint. The print’s still there.  I made a strawberry buttermilk cake, and picked up Popeye’s. And it was just us three again, with the early spring night outside, frog song rising, and our voices wishing, hoping joy.

For a Friend--A beginning

 This year my resolution is to take three steps towards every single hare-brained idea that occurs to me.  So here they are so far:

1. Start a Podcast focusing only on women with blue hair, with each episode telling the story of someone who's chosen  to dye their hair blue.

2. Curate a art show featuring only artists who have day jobs as healthcare providers.

3. Start a Super Pac dedicated to promoting candidates who are pro-consensus.

4. Free Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.  A good friend of mine is a relative.  In a rare, personal facebook post, she noted, that if every person she knew, and his extensive contacts here in the states, had pressured the United States to intervene on his behalf, he might be free. So, why is he not free?

Here is his story.  He became President of Peru in 2016.  He's currently under house arrest.  The conditions are reportedly very poor and he has health issues.  He is 83.  A year older than my mother.

He's been a player at the very highest levels of the world economy, and you know, that always seems opaque and slippery to me, and beyond my understanding. But I remember him coming up to see my friend a few times during college.  He always went on long runs, no matter what was going on or the weather. He went in the evening, and if we were all going out to dinner, and ready to get in the cars and go, well, that was just too bad.  It was such a contrast to my father, who never exercised at all. I remember my father discussing with my mother, his voice horrified, that he'd read an article saying running sapped one's libido.  "Mark," my mother said, "then you mustn't do it."

When he became president of Peru, he undertook some laudable efforts at social reform.  He sought to be inclusive of indigenous people, promoted abortion rights, women's rights, and the rights of the LBTG community as well.  He apposed Maduro, Venezuela's leader.

I really don't know where to begin with this.  I spoke to one of the surgeons I work with, catching him as he was going out the door, carrying a bunch of empty boxes.  His name is Dr. Ter-Petrosyan. He's a good man.  His family emigrated from Armenia to South America.  I thought to Peru.  He's a big man, almost 7 feet tall, with a funny square head and square glasses, which accentuate his boxy, kind face.  I thought I'd start with him, since he's the only Peruvian I know, outside of Paddington Bear, who is an imaginary character.

"You're from Peru, right?" I asked him.  He looked a little exasperated, but in a nice way.  I felt bad.  The surgeons work so hard, I feel bad asking for any extra minute of their time.

"No, Nicaragua, actually."

"Oh, God." I said.  "I'm sorry."  I felt really stupid.  It was such a stupid, white person thing to do. A real "Karen" move. Mix up Latin American countries. As if they're all the same. "Didn't you give a big talk about medicine in Peru?"

"Yes.  But I'm not actually from there. So, that is why you thought that. Well, what do you want with Peru, Miss Haley?"  He put the boxes down and gave me his full attention.

I told him.  He nodded.

"Here is the thing," he said, after I had finished, in his formal way. "I have a great deal of respect for you, Miss Haley, and I think this is something we could perhaps move in some way positively towards, and I know a lot of doctors in Peru. It is not right, is it? It is unjust."  He nodded. "I will work with you to fix it."  He nodded definitively, picked up his boxes and walked out the door.

Well.  There you have it.  We'll see what happens.  If you, dear reader, have any suggestions about next steps, please leave them in the comments.

Traveling

 We’re traveling today. Despite the CDC recommendations.  Despite my own trepidations. Logic, epidemiology classes, evidence based practice.  We’re getting on a plane and flying down to Florida, where we will rent a kayak and hie out to the 10,000 islands.  Except for the airport/plane, I think this is a pretty risk free thing to do. The islands are lonely and pristine.

I haven’t packed, of course. I can’t seem to rule my days the way I used to. I just can’t seem to get all that excited about them.  The things that used to really worry me hardly make a dent. Is my surgeon irritated? Is my husband disgruntled? Am I getting fat? A B? Could be!

Maybe the equanimity we associate with Zen masters is just that they’ve reached the point where they “can’t even.”

Mainly we’re going because I think my husband is at risk psychologically.  I don’t think he’s going to kill himself or anything, but he’s pretty despondent. His father is being put on hospice.  He’s 96. Flew B29’s in World War II.  Came home and made a fortune in television advertising.  Managed to piss off the Pulitzers. Watches Fox News. Adores Trump. His kidneys are failing. Well...he’s had a glass of vodka over ice every morning at 11 am for most of his adult life, so no surprise there.  He calls it his “special water.” Even at the assisted living center where he resides he continued the tradition.  Going to brunch with him, our achingly young trans waiter would bring him a glass of ice without even being asked...it was clear they shared an understanding...and he would take out a flask out of his pocket and fill the water glass up.  Now they’re talking dialysis, and the high - end facility doesn’t want him going back and forth.  So he’s on hospice.  Have I told you about the family I married into? They’re shiny, rich and fun, but they don’t much like inconvenience.  To me, it doesn’t seem like dialysis a couple times a week would be that different from the life he’s already living.  I mean...hook him up...turn on Fox News.  Voila.  And I’ve tried to explain that the wackiness they’re seeing is partly a result of his failing kidneys.  They all have degrees in marketing and communication.  I also, to Jay, explained how difficult and painful a death from kidney failure is.  He gets it. The rest...unmoved. His older brother is the executor. And I get that he was chosen because of his success in the business world.  He’s a big power broker in the communications industry. But this dismissal of biology....well.  I guess they’ve all decided 96 years is enough.

I think of my little old lady patients (I have a handful) who take the frickin bus to dialysis. Who find meaning and joy, and persist, despite their swollen legs and aching backs. Who sit and knit for grandchildren while the machine runs.

So I’m taking my husband down to the sea, and we’re going to do what he does best...get into a situation where he has to make something out of nothing.  Camp on the beaches, fend for ourselves. I understand why he was so drawn to the wilderness, now, growing up in that environment. 

Well, that’s my half hour. I guess I’m ignoring biology, too.