Lilly's sick today. She's on the couch across from me, saying random things while I pretend to be answering my email instead of working on my blog. I don't want my children to know about my blog. So far, no one is reading this at all, which is a strange sort of relief.
"Do you stilll write letters any more?" Lilly asks.
I pause, think. "No. I should though."
"Letters are more fun to get."
"That's true."
I used to write letters to all my friends.
"Are you liking your gift?" Lilly interrupts again, fingering it. Oh, yeah. Jay gave me a pink fleece jacket. Then he took me to meet his parents for the first time. Mixed signals.
"Why do you get stuck with men who give you stupid gifts?" She muses. "A basket is more romantic than a fleece."
Ayhan, my ex, an almost unbelievably beautiful Persian professional soccer player. famously gave me a wooden basket on my birthday that also folded into a trivet. I broke up with him. Not immediately.
"I don't know whether I like this book Fifth Business." Lilly says. Lilly got me the book for mybirthday, but pilfered it that night. "I think it's sexist."
"Why do you think that?"
"Well he says, 'I teach in an all boys school, which suits me fine. I never thought girls really profited by an education designed for men, by men.'"
"Does that make the book sexist or the character sexist?"
"Oh, okay." Lilly says. "It's hard though, because Dunny the's I, so you feel like he's the author."
"Well, the perspective will change in the other books."
"Oh, good. I mean, I like him, because he helps Mrs. Dempster so much when he's a kid, but now I'm not sure."
There's a pause. Then she says. "Am I bothering you?"
"No."
"This room is dreary."
"Really?" I look up, dismayed. We've put so much effort into making our basement "the pad" I really wanted it to be a place the kids could hang out in and make their own.
"No, just today. Hey, look at the way the venetian blinds are hanging--wouldn't that make a pretty wedding dress?" That's the difference. I look at the venetian blind hanging crooked on the window in the basement and think Look at that crappy broken blind. Why haven't I cleaned it or fixed it or gotten rid of it. That's just like me. Totally ineffecive. Christ and then I move on to thinking about the garage, or, God Forbid, the furnace room, but Lilly just looks at it and thinks it looks like a wedding dress. It's not reproaching her. And it does look like a wedding dress.
"Will you play pente with me later today?"
"Sure."
"Not now. You don't have to, now, but later?"
"Absolutely."
Lilly is the only person I know who can beat me at Pente.
"We need to get caller I.D." she says, presently. "We're the only people in the world who don't have caller i.d."
"Too expensive."
She sighs. "oh well, I guess it's a way of adding mystery to our lives."
I can hear the garbage truck outside of the house. Of course, I've forgotten yet again to take the garbage out. I have two options at this point: I can chase the garbage men down the street with the garbage or take it to my parents house tomorrow, which is on a different schedule. The garbage men think this is really funny when I do this, and they'll usually stop the truck, but sometimes they just keep going (only if it's a holiday crew, to be fair) I'm really nice to garbage men. For one, one of my best friends in town was a garbage man (he's worked his way up since then--not much---this is what can happen to jazz trombonists, so beware!) and for another, I got to experience Miami after Hurrican Andrew, when the garbage piled in the streets. Garbage men are much more important than you realize, so I always bake mine cookies at Christmas.
"Kaylie says that when she saw Seth's name on the caller i.d. and her mom picked up that she must have done something to Seth and his mom was calling to complain." She laughs.
Seth is a very popular boy at her school who normally doesn't have anything to do with Lilly or her friends, but whose mother called 2 nights ago to invite them to a party.
"Maybe he wants to branch out," I suggest.
"Maybe his mother is forcing him to invite us." I used to twirl baton with Seth's mother, so I think this is probably true.
"Oh," I say weakly. "Surely not..."
"Right." Lilly says. "I'm going upstairs. Don't forget about Pente." She sweeps the quilt around her and goes.
And that's my 1/2 hour. I'm going to go try to catch the garbage truck.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Redemption
Went to see The Darjeeling Ltd with Lilly tonight. It started on the24th, but it's been sold out until tonight. We went to the 5:15 show. Rushmore is my favorite movie. It's more than a favorite movie with me, actually. I've watched it over 200 times. I started watching after Xavier went away to fall apart. I have an old boyfriend who became an agent in Hollywood, and every year he used to me a big box full of all the tapes sent for people to review before the academy awards. It was a nice way to get free movies, as long as you didn't mind "Property of Paramount Pictures" popping up across the screen every 30 seconds or so. So after he left, I popped it in and watched it. And watched it again. And watched it again. Rushmore is more than a film to me: it's a fantasy family. It promises redemption on the only scale I want. I tried to get my kids into it, but switched it off when Lilly turned to me and said, "Mommy, what's a hand job?" Danger is everywhere. So after that I watched it by myself. I was working the night shift at the switchboard at the local sheriff's department at the time, so, on my off days, I would either go to Walmart and just wander around and buy things like gum or corduroy backed lap desks, or sit on the floor in my empty living room and watch Rushmore.
Rushmore is kind of a password, I've found, for a membership in secret rumpled club. I keep changing my mind about what it means. I don't trust people who don't like the movie, and loving it is a signal that our souls are in sync.
Darjeeling isn't Rushmore but it's pretty good. Owen Wilson seems so unhappy, though. Maybe he needs to become a nurse. I think everyone should be a nurse for at least 1 year. It should be like the army used to be.
Back at work, on our little twilight train, things are...kind of slow. It's a little funny, actually. My dad gave me Zero Limits for my birthday. My father kind of falls for everything that comes down the supernatural pike and buys me the book, and then I feel obliged to read it because, well, it came from my Dad. So, anyways, on my birthday, I read the first chapter of the book. In it this guy, Dr. Hew Len supposedly cures an entire mental ward of the criminally insane by going through their charts and taking their problems upon himself and saying "I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you." I just laughed. And then, for kicks, I looked at my patient list from the weekend, still stuck in the back pocket of my scrubs and I thought about each one of them and all their problems and did it. 18 patients.
So guess what. We only have 7 left. Blessed empty beds, clean with closed doors. Rooms free of pain.
Coincidence?
Baggins is suggesting we put tacks on the local interstate or we'll all be out of a job. Haha.
The sleeping girl, by the way, finally passed. Her mother came back, but refused to withdraw care. I'm not sure of the details, but I know the issue went all the way up to the ethics committee.
I love you. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Thank you.
Rushmore is kind of a password, I've found, for a membership in secret rumpled club. I keep changing my mind about what it means. I don't trust people who don't like the movie, and loving it is a signal that our souls are in sync.
Darjeeling isn't Rushmore but it's pretty good. Owen Wilson seems so unhappy, though. Maybe he needs to become a nurse. I think everyone should be a nurse for at least 1 year. It should be like the army used to be.
Back at work, on our little twilight train, things are...kind of slow. It's a little funny, actually. My dad gave me Zero Limits for my birthday. My father kind of falls for everything that comes down the supernatural pike and buys me the book, and then I feel obliged to read it because, well, it came from my Dad. So, anyways, on my birthday, I read the first chapter of the book. In it this guy, Dr. Hew Len supposedly cures an entire mental ward of the criminally insane by going through their charts and taking their problems upon himself and saying "I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you." I just laughed. And then, for kicks, I looked at my patient list from the weekend, still stuck in the back pocket of my scrubs and I thought about each one of them and all their problems and did it. 18 patients.
So guess what. We only have 7 left. Blessed empty beds, clean with closed doors. Rooms free of pain.
Coincidence?
Baggins is suggesting we put tacks on the local interstate or we'll all be out of a job. Haha.
The sleeping girl, by the way, finally passed. Her mother came back, but refused to withdraw care. I'm not sure of the details, but I know the issue went all the way up to the ethics committee.
I love you. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Thank you.
Friday, October 26, 2007
All That Altruistic Stuff
Oh...back in the swim...slowly, slowly.
Went to work today, sort of.
Since I am now "management" I am now being trained how to do that.
This takes the form of management classes, and these are a little startling. For example, today our management coach told us that the reason we do everything we do is....The Bottom Line.
"If you want to get something done, and someone asks you why, the only reason you are doing anything is to address the bottom line. Harsh but true. The hospital is a business, and you are here to help that business prosper." To underscore this point, he had us all take a dollar bill out of our wallets and put it on the table in front of us and stare at it all through that section of the talk. "There are other reasons--serving your fellow man, altruistic stuff, whatever, but the basic reason you're here is to make money."
I pointed out that, since this was ostensibly a "university" hospital, there might be other motivators--like ummmm....service to others? Research? Advancing knowledge? That the university was comprised of professionals who have their own codes of ethics and their own governing and licensing boards and that my reasons for being a nurse only peripherally concerned money. I also said, very nicely, that, if he were going to be giving this talk to nurses, he might be more careful about being so dismissive about all that "altruistic stuff."
"If you're a patient," I said "and your life and your pain is in someone else's hands, you'd better hope your nurse is sincerely more interested in making stinky, pooping, out-of-it you comfortable and well than in the bottom line. Not to dismiss it, but maybe there's a better way to phrase that so you honor the reasons we're in this. I know health care isn't your background--so maybe you're used to a different crowd." I smiled.
The death smile, my children and my staff call it.
All that altruistic stuff.
Yeah, all that.
And here's what so great about the people I work with. Two of them were with me--Lois and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is my age, has 5 children, and a husband dying of leukemia. She's a sup on the night shift, Lois is her core. Elizabeth was the first person ever to treat me like I knew something. "You have a very good head on your shoulders," she said. No one had ever told me that. Acknowledgement and trust. Big gifts to receive so late. We didn't get along at first. Then one night she came over to me and said, "Ok Patton, I was driving home the other day and thinking about something you said and I was thinking 'what an idiot' but then all the sudden, I realized what you meant, and I just want you to know...I get you. I get it." And then everything was okay from then on.
So I sort of launch into this in class, and my two coworkers, instead of hiding their heads in their hands and pretending not to know me, nod and say, "yeah, that's right."
The only things that makes life worth living are the things that can't be measured in a bottom line. The only things that make my job worth doing aren't on the balance sheet. It's cliched but true.
No bottom line for sitting next to someone and holding their hand instead of restraining them, even though you could get more work done if you did. No bottom line for staying late and letting your staff vent--about patients, about other staff. No bottom line for being the one who sits with the parents after the docs have told them the news about their kid, no bottom line for doing the very basic work of loving your fellow man.
The rest of the class was good, so I guess it wasn't a total waste.
Oh, it's a tricky little swamp to navigate, this world, isn't it?
That's my 1/2 hour.
Went to work today, sort of.
Since I am now "management" I am now being trained how to do that.
This takes the form of management classes, and these are a little startling. For example, today our management coach told us that the reason we do everything we do is....The Bottom Line.
"If you want to get something done, and someone asks you why, the only reason you are doing anything is to address the bottom line. Harsh but true. The hospital is a business, and you are here to help that business prosper." To underscore this point, he had us all take a dollar bill out of our wallets and put it on the table in front of us and stare at it all through that section of the talk. "There are other reasons--serving your fellow man, altruistic stuff, whatever, but the basic reason you're here is to make money."
I pointed out that, since this was ostensibly a "university" hospital, there might be other motivators--like ummmm....service to others? Research? Advancing knowledge? That the university was comprised of professionals who have their own codes of ethics and their own governing and licensing boards and that my reasons for being a nurse only peripherally concerned money. I also said, very nicely, that, if he were going to be giving this talk to nurses, he might be more careful about being so dismissive about all that "altruistic stuff."
"If you're a patient," I said "and your life and your pain is in someone else's hands, you'd better hope your nurse is sincerely more interested in making stinky, pooping, out-of-it you comfortable and well than in the bottom line. Not to dismiss it, but maybe there's a better way to phrase that so you honor the reasons we're in this. I know health care isn't your background--so maybe you're used to a different crowd." I smiled.
The death smile, my children and my staff call it.
All that altruistic stuff.
Yeah, all that.
And here's what so great about the people I work with. Two of them were with me--Lois and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is my age, has 5 children, and a husband dying of leukemia. She's a sup on the night shift, Lois is her core. Elizabeth was the first person ever to treat me like I knew something. "You have a very good head on your shoulders," she said. No one had ever told me that. Acknowledgement and trust. Big gifts to receive so late. We didn't get along at first. Then one night she came over to me and said, "Ok Patton, I was driving home the other day and thinking about something you said and I was thinking 'what an idiot' but then all the sudden, I realized what you meant, and I just want you to know...I get you. I get it." And then everything was okay from then on.
So I sort of launch into this in class, and my two coworkers, instead of hiding their heads in their hands and pretending not to know me, nod and say, "yeah, that's right."
The only things that makes life worth living are the things that can't be measured in a bottom line. The only things that make my job worth doing aren't on the balance sheet. It's cliched but true.
No bottom line for sitting next to someone and holding their hand instead of restraining them, even though you could get more work done if you did. No bottom line for staying late and letting your staff vent--about patients, about other staff. No bottom line for being the one who sits with the parents after the docs have told them the news about their kid, no bottom line for doing the very basic work of loving your fellow man.
The rest of the class was good, so I guess it wasn't a total waste.
Oh, it's a tricky little swamp to navigate, this world, isn't it?
That's my 1/2 hour.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Dogs
I got a call at 5pm. "Is zees Mrs. Tonks?" Russian accent. Young man.
I start laughing. "Oh no!" he says "I am zo zorry, Mrs. Tonks, I mean Mrs. Patton--Tonks zat is the name of the ze dog."
The vet had called earlier in the day, to tell me things were not going so well and they weren't sure that Tonksie would walk, they had thought she was standing up, but in fact, her front legs are so strong she was just giving the impression of standing up. (How they got front and back confused makes me wonder). Why were they calling me again? Had something gone wrong?
"I am calling because, let me tell you, I am zo excited! I am out here in ze yard behind ze hospital, and who am I watching? I am watching the puppy, Mrs. Tonks. walking around and uuurinating."
"Oh, that's wonderful!" I'm so happy, I sit down.
"I just wanted to call you, Mrs. Tonks, and tell you that, since things were not so happy this morning. She is zo much better! I am zo happy!"
"Well, thank you, thank you very much."
"It's a good thing." There's a pause. "She is very cute."
"Yes, she is."
"If she had had a wheelchair, you know, she is one dog who could have done it. But it is much better she doesn't. So much spirit!"
He sounds like he's in love with her. Would that work? Not only would there be the interspecies hurdle--but the cultural differences--I don't know. She's a very engaging animal. I'll see if I can find a picture, then you can see for yourself.
"Okay, Mrs. Tonks. I just want you to know how good she is doing, I didn't want you to sleep thinking she was not better."
I repeat this to Jay at dinner. Wednesday nights the kids go to church and mom goes out to dinner. We're stuffing ourselves with masaman curry. My favorite
"I'm so glad," he says, "I was holding the dog on my lap in the car, waiting for you to get your purse and change shoes or whatever you were doing, and I thought about just quickly breaking its neck. I didn't think there was any hope for that dog at all."
"You were what?"
"Just kidding."
We just had to put Jay's dog down 3 weeks ago. She was the last of a pack of 4. Her name was Ladybug and she was 16 years old. She looked exactly like a fox. The last dog he put down, a year and a half ago created a big rift between us. His ex of 15 years came out to spend the weekend with her little girl,--the product of her new marriage to a local salsa instructor--because it was her dog, too and she wanted to be there to say goodbye. And afterwards, he broke up with me! Hmmm....you think they hooked up? I wonder...bastard. Maybe, maybe not. He sort of freaks out when anything gets too emotional. Like really freaks out. We've discussed alternatives to this: camping out, taking a break, talking about it, medication.
So I was nervous about Ladybug. It was her time. She had bedsores, which I'd ended up debriding over the summer--they'd healed up real nice, but she wasn't happy. She kept getting stuck places and she was deaf. Finally, he decided it was time to call the vet. We have this alcoholic vet in town who makes a living almost exclusively on this kind of thing. When he's not injecting dogs with barbituates he's down at the local bar, soused. He's a nice guy. Kind of ruined. Awfully young to be this screwed up. I mean, he can't possibly be done paying off his vet school loans. But the guy to call when your dog's dying.
So the night before we're going to put the bug down, we give her a steak. Which feels sort of creepy.
"Do you think we're doing the right thing?" Jay asks. "Do you think she's ready?"
"I don't know....I mean--you know her best, is she getting anything out of being alive?" I'm all for nursing dogs, and people, along. Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it doesn't enjoy life. I mean, when I'm creeping along, I'm sure there will be some things to stay alive for. Who can judge?
But the next morning, when I woke up, the dog was nowhere around. Jay called me, later in the morning, really shaken up. "I found her floating in the pond." he tells me. She knew. She took it into her own hands, paws "Can you come out here, please?"
When I got out there, he was packing his ice axes. He was covered with mud and his face looked terrible, all shrunken. "I'm going to climb Mt. Whitney. I don't know how long I'll be gone. Could you please feed the cats?"
So I did. There were some scary phone calls such as: "I think I may just chill out in Mexico for a month or two--I'll let you know" But he came back after 5 days.
And guess what, the vet student just called. "Mrs. Tonks! You can come get the puppy, she is doing zo well we zink she can go home."
Hooray.
That's my 1/2 hour. I'm going to go get my dog.
I start laughing. "Oh no!" he says "I am zo zorry, Mrs. Tonks, I mean Mrs. Patton--Tonks zat is the name of the ze dog."
The vet had called earlier in the day, to tell me things were not going so well and they weren't sure that Tonksie would walk, they had thought she was standing up, but in fact, her front legs are so strong she was just giving the impression of standing up. (How they got front and back confused makes me wonder). Why were they calling me again? Had something gone wrong?
"I am calling because, let me tell you, I am zo excited! I am out here in ze yard behind ze hospital, and who am I watching? I am watching the puppy, Mrs. Tonks. walking around and uuurinating."
"Oh, that's wonderful!" I'm so happy, I sit down.
"I just wanted to call you, Mrs. Tonks, and tell you that, since things were not so happy this morning. She is zo much better! I am zo happy!"
"Well, thank you, thank you very much."
"It's a good thing." There's a pause. "She is very cute."
"Yes, she is."
"If she had had a wheelchair, you know, she is one dog who could have done it. But it is much better she doesn't. So much spirit!"
He sounds like he's in love with her. Would that work? Not only would there be the interspecies hurdle--but the cultural differences--I don't know. She's a very engaging animal. I'll see if I can find a picture, then you can see for yourself.
"Okay, Mrs. Tonks. I just want you to know how good she is doing, I didn't want you to sleep thinking she was not better."
I repeat this to Jay at dinner. Wednesday nights the kids go to church and mom goes out to dinner. We're stuffing ourselves with masaman curry. My favorite
"I'm so glad," he says, "I was holding the dog on my lap in the car, waiting for you to get your purse and change shoes or whatever you were doing, and I thought about just quickly breaking its neck. I didn't think there was any hope for that dog at all."
"You were what?"
"Just kidding."
We just had to put Jay's dog down 3 weeks ago. She was the last of a pack of 4. Her name was Ladybug and she was 16 years old. She looked exactly like a fox. The last dog he put down, a year and a half ago created a big rift between us. His ex of 15 years came out to spend the weekend with her little girl,--the product of her new marriage to a local salsa instructor--because it was her dog, too and she wanted to be there to say goodbye. And afterwards, he broke up with me! Hmmm....you think they hooked up? I wonder...bastard. Maybe, maybe not. He sort of freaks out when anything gets too emotional. Like really freaks out. We've discussed alternatives to this: camping out, taking a break, talking about it, medication.
So I was nervous about Ladybug. It was her time. She had bedsores, which I'd ended up debriding over the summer--they'd healed up real nice, but she wasn't happy. She kept getting stuck places and she was deaf. Finally, he decided it was time to call the vet. We have this alcoholic vet in town who makes a living almost exclusively on this kind of thing. When he's not injecting dogs with barbituates he's down at the local bar, soused. He's a nice guy. Kind of ruined. Awfully young to be this screwed up. I mean, he can't possibly be done paying off his vet school loans. But the guy to call when your dog's dying.
So the night before we're going to put the bug down, we give her a steak. Which feels sort of creepy.
"Do you think we're doing the right thing?" Jay asks. "Do you think she's ready?"
"I don't know....I mean--you know her best, is she getting anything out of being alive?" I'm all for nursing dogs, and people, along. Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it doesn't enjoy life. I mean, when I'm creeping along, I'm sure there will be some things to stay alive for. Who can judge?
But the next morning, when I woke up, the dog was nowhere around. Jay called me, later in the morning, really shaken up. "I found her floating in the pond." he tells me. She knew. She took it into her own hands, paws "Can you come out here, please?"
When I got out there, he was packing his ice axes. He was covered with mud and his face looked terrible, all shrunken. "I'm going to climb Mt. Whitney. I don't know how long I'll be gone. Could you please feed the cats?"
So I did. There were some scary phone calls such as: "I think I may just chill out in Mexico for a month or two--I'll let you know" But he came back after 5 days.
And guess what, the vet student just called. "Mrs. Tonks! You can come get the puppy, she is doing zo well we zink she can go home."
Hooray.
That's my 1/2 hour. I'm going to go get my dog.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Redos
I miss the puppy.
Lilly is really distraught.
"I knew the second it happened I had done something really bad. I just wanted to redo that second, take that back. I said, "God, please let it happen to me, not the puppy. Have you ever felt that way?"
Oh, yeah. No one who gets past 21 doesn't know that feeling. That's the horrible part of growing up: you make a difference. Maybe not in the big sweeping ways you fantasize about when you are young (or older--our culture is in the grip of an almost psychotic communal celebrity fantasy), but what you say and do can have almost unimaginable consequences.
When I was in high school, I went through a brief period of time when I had no friends. Heather was getting into some stuff that made me pretty uncomfortable and I backed off. But then I had no one to talk to. I didn't like anyone around me. I mentioned this to my English teacher, and he said, "Lower your standards." This rang like a bell. I did, and almost from that afternoon on, I suddenly had people to hang out with.
I ran into him at Office Depot a few months after I moved back to town and reminded him of his advice. "Oh my God," he said. "I told you that? I told a 15 year old girl that?"
"yeah..."
He flushed, right up to his shiny bald head. "I was 40 years old, when I said that, and I was really going through some stuff. I felt like a failure. I was only thinking about myself--I just hated teaching..my marriage was rocky....Haley. I don't know what to say. That was the wrong thing to tell you, and I'm so sorry. What I should have said was this: If you're having a problem with something or someone there's probably a good reason for it and you should listen to yourself, even if it means being lonely and not having someone to eat lunch with. Hold out, because the right people, the right friends will find you. Can I have a redo?"
I just laughed. "No worries." I didn't tell him that the reason we were at Office Depot was to buy a new computer, because my fiance had relocated to a mental institution in Florida, and his best friend had driven up with a moving van to collect his stuff. "Why are we buying a computer?" Lilly had asked. She was 6. "Can't we use Xavier's? Does this mean Xavier's not coming back?" Should have held out.
So yes, Lilly. I want a redo. Anyone who says they have no regrets needs an MRI to assess frontal lobe damage. They probably have trouble with the date as well. I know that Lilly loves the puppy more than she loves anything on earth, ever. I know that the love and trust Lilly has trouble finding for people was not a problem ever with Tonks. I know that hurting Tonks was the last thing she would have ever done on purpose. But she was frustrated, and she was doing her homework and Tonks was probably jumping up on her and Lilly got up impatiently and thrust her downstairs--too hard, too fast.
This is what I told her:
"You know, Lilly, Tonks is going to be okay. It's going to take a lot of time and effort and love, but she's going to be okay again. That's what the vet says. And you've learned a lesson that takes some people a long time to learn, but one that every human does learn--carelessness and anger can have unimaginable repercussions. And I also think you really understand now how fragile life is."
Lilly's crying.
"It's okay, sweetie. You're going to make it up to Tonks, and Tonksie will still love you. She's going to be incapacitated for 6 weeks, and you'll get to do her physical therapy and make sure she takes her pills. It's okay. It's just life and you screwed up, but it isn't as bad as it could be and you understand something important and we still love you and you still have your dog."
We don't get redos. But we get love and forgiveness.
We get to have it, and we get to give it. Thank goodness.
My concept of zen doesn't exclude this. I think this is the gift of zen--redemption. By waking to who you are and where you are at this moment, with these smells, these people, this carpet, this past--you automatically forgive--yourself and others--and live for love. It is the only thing that can get us through. Otherwise, our "redos" would sink us like concrete shoes. Peace to all beings.
Lilly is really distraught.
"I knew the second it happened I had done something really bad. I just wanted to redo that second, take that back. I said, "God, please let it happen to me, not the puppy. Have you ever felt that way?"
Oh, yeah. No one who gets past 21 doesn't know that feeling. That's the horrible part of growing up: you make a difference. Maybe not in the big sweeping ways you fantasize about when you are young (or older--our culture is in the grip of an almost psychotic communal celebrity fantasy), but what you say and do can have almost unimaginable consequences.
When I was in high school, I went through a brief period of time when I had no friends. Heather was getting into some stuff that made me pretty uncomfortable and I backed off. But then I had no one to talk to. I didn't like anyone around me. I mentioned this to my English teacher, and he said, "Lower your standards." This rang like a bell. I did, and almost from that afternoon on, I suddenly had people to hang out with.
I ran into him at Office Depot a few months after I moved back to town and reminded him of his advice. "Oh my God," he said. "I told you that? I told a 15 year old girl that?"
"yeah..."
He flushed, right up to his shiny bald head. "I was 40 years old, when I said that, and I was really going through some stuff. I felt like a failure. I was only thinking about myself--I just hated teaching..my marriage was rocky....Haley. I don't know what to say. That was the wrong thing to tell you, and I'm so sorry. What I should have said was this: If you're having a problem with something or someone there's probably a good reason for it and you should listen to yourself, even if it means being lonely and not having someone to eat lunch with. Hold out, because the right people, the right friends will find you. Can I have a redo?"
I just laughed. "No worries." I didn't tell him that the reason we were at Office Depot was to buy a new computer, because my fiance had relocated to a mental institution in Florida, and his best friend had driven up with a moving van to collect his stuff. "Why are we buying a computer?" Lilly had asked. She was 6. "Can't we use Xavier's? Does this mean Xavier's not coming back?" Should have held out.
So yes, Lilly. I want a redo. Anyone who says they have no regrets needs an MRI to assess frontal lobe damage. They probably have trouble with the date as well. I know that Lilly loves the puppy more than she loves anything on earth, ever. I know that the love and trust Lilly has trouble finding for people was not a problem ever with Tonks. I know that hurting Tonks was the last thing she would have ever done on purpose. But she was frustrated, and she was doing her homework and Tonks was probably jumping up on her and Lilly got up impatiently and thrust her downstairs--too hard, too fast.
This is what I told her:
"You know, Lilly, Tonks is going to be okay. It's going to take a lot of time and effort and love, but she's going to be okay again. That's what the vet says. And you've learned a lesson that takes some people a long time to learn, but one that every human does learn--carelessness and anger can have unimaginable repercussions. And I also think you really understand now how fragile life is."
Lilly's crying.
"It's okay, sweetie. You're going to make it up to Tonks, and Tonksie will still love you. She's going to be incapacitated for 6 weeks, and you'll get to do her physical therapy and make sure she takes her pills. It's okay. It's just life and you screwed up, but it isn't as bad as it could be and you understand something important and we still love you and you still have your dog."
We don't get redos. But we get love and forgiveness.
We get to have it, and we get to give it. Thank goodness.
My concept of zen doesn't exclude this. I think this is the gift of zen--redemption. By waking to who you are and where you are at this moment, with these smells, these people, this carpet, this past--you automatically forgive--yourself and others--and live for love. It is the only thing that can get us through. Otherwise, our "redos" would sink us like concrete shoes. Peace to all beings.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Pets
Today's my birthday.
It's been overshadowed by an emergency: my daughter's lhasa apso, Tonks, fell down the stairs and managed to herniate two disks. When I found her, she couldn't move her back legs. She was trying to walk on her front paws, and actually doing a pretty good job. It was horrible. Jay and I were on our way out of town. I came outside the house with her in my arms and Jay said, "Guess we're going to the vet." She had emergency surgery, which I had to pay half for up front. 1750 dollars. Right on the credit card I had finally cleared 3 months ago. I never get ahead. Lilly says it's her fault. Poor little dog.
At the doggie ER, I was sort of embarrassed. My dogs are fed and loved, but not particularly groomed. I have 4--3 strays and Tonks, who was purchased to make up for Lilly having no friends in 7th grade. In addition to that, we have a frog and two cats. Pebbles is a deeply psychologically damaged calico, and her son, Marlowe, is really wonderful and loving, but likes to stow away in the car. "Meow?" he'll finally say, 15 minutes into a trip. This is especially bad when it's 6:30am and I'm on my way to work.
"Trouble not the animals," Dostoyevsky said, "for they have the beginnings of souls. " They have more than that, I think.
"Do you think it matters?" I ask Jay, "that my dog looks so scruffy?"
"No," he says soothingly, "it's fine." It's sometimes hard to get a read on what Jay actually thinks of anything. 6 months later, he'll just drop that something irritated him. Since we're so much alike, the way I read Jay is that I figure out what I'm feeling about something, and it's usually the way he's feeling about it, too. But he'll never, never come right out and say it. Probably why he's been married 3 times.
We went to the city for a night. We were going to go rock climbing and camping, but it was freezing and drizzling, so we opted for the civilization experience. After a bottle of wine between us and 2 pints of guinness, we ended up in this strange place--the city museum. It's this labyrinthe of sculptured fantasy--twists and turns and dragons and tunnels and iron gardens, ladders and stairways, an airplane enmeshed in the structure. The gates were open, so we went in. I started climbing through it--it was magic. A dreamscape. Art that you see with your eyes and know with your body. Even freezing cold and wet, the thing kept blossoming in front of me. I wondered if we would be able to find our way back. Like being inside someone's head. Then Jay got nervous, so we came down and went back to the hotel, had some organic cheese doodles and chocolate and fell asleep.
That's my 1/2 hour--well--25 minutes this time.
It's been overshadowed by an emergency: my daughter's lhasa apso, Tonks, fell down the stairs and managed to herniate two disks. When I found her, she couldn't move her back legs. She was trying to walk on her front paws, and actually doing a pretty good job. It was horrible. Jay and I were on our way out of town. I came outside the house with her in my arms and Jay said, "Guess we're going to the vet." She had emergency surgery, which I had to pay half for up front. 1750 dollars. Right on the credit card I had finally cleared 3 months ago. I never get ahead. Lilly says it's her fault. Poor little dog.
At the doggie ER, I was sort of embarrassed. My dogs are fed and loved, but not particularly groomed. I have 4--3 strays and Tonks, who was purchased to make up for Lilly having no friends in 7th grade. In addition to that, we have a frog and two cats. Pebbles is a deeply psychologically damaged calico, and her son, Marlowe, is really wonderful and loving, but likes to stow away in the car. "Meow?" he'll finally say, 15 minutes into a trip. This is especially bad when it's 6:30am and I'm on my way to work.
"Trouble not the animals," Dostoyevsky said, "for they have the beginnings of souls. " They have more than that, I think.
"Do you think it matters?" I ask Jay, "that my dog looks so scruffy?"
"No," he says soothingly, "it's fine." It's sometimes hard to get a read on what Jay actually thinks of anything. 6 months later, he'll just drop that something irritated him. Since we're so much alike, the way I read Jay is that I figure out what I'm feeling about something, and it's usually the way he's feeling about it, too. But he'll never, never come right out and say it. Probably why he's been married 3 times.
We went to the city for a night. We were going to go rock climbing and camping, but it was freezing and drizzling, so we opted for the civilization experience. After a bottle of wine between us and 2 pints of guinness, we ended up in this strange place--the city museum. It's this labyrinthe of sculptured fantasy--twists and turns and dragons and tunnels and iron gardens, ladders and stairways, an airplane enmeshed in the structure. The gates were open, so we went in. I started climbing through it--it was magic. A dreamscape. Art that you see with your eyes and know with your body. Even freezing cold and wet, the thing kept blossoming in front of me. I wondered if we would be able to find our way back. Like being inside someone's head. Then Jay got nervous, so we came down and went back to the hotel, had some organic cheese doodles and chocolate and fell asleep.
That's my 1/2 hour--well--25 minutes this time.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Homecoming
It was homecoming yesterday. Nick was marching and had to be dropped off at the crack of dawn at school. Lilly and I went to watch him. We parked down by the mosque (I get such a kick out of our town having a mosque--minarets are usually not part of the skyline in America, unless you're in Las Vegas. The folks that run it have a little store there, and they have non virgin olive oil for around 8 bucks/gallon. I use it for deep frying catfish. I hate to brag, but since this is anonymous I think it's safe: I make the best fried catfish in America. And since I don't think they're eating too much deep fried catfish anywhere else on the planet, I think it might be safe to say I make the best fried catfish in the world. That's just my opinion. And my family's. And everyone who's ever eaten it.
So, back to homecoming. The mosque is about5 blocks from the parade route. I like to watch it on 9th street, because there's a coffee shop right there I can duck into. It was a beautiful day--just perfect. 55 degrees, blue blue cloudless skies the leaves just starting to go golden. Lilly came with me, with her camera. She's at this phase where she's looking down on the mass culture. I'm a little dismayed by this because what I know that she doesn't is that cynicism is coat you borrow at first that you can't then take off with any ease. I mean, cynicism, the real nasty life sapping stuff will hit and strangle every sunny day eventually--why start so early? But both my children don't know that yet--they just want to be cool. So there she was, in an oversized grey cashmere sweater, cargo capris and, accidentally--a hat with the home team's logo on it. "Darn!" she said, "now they'll all think I actually care about this." We came to 9th street, in front of the Episcopal church, and we'd arrived just in time. We could hear the bands up the street and see the lights of the motorcycle cops leading the parade. And right there, in front of us, was my best friend from highschool, Heather.
Heather is 2 years older than me and we grew up together. Heather taught me to drive and how to put on mascara and, incidentally, how to roll a joint. Heather was the first of our group to do everything: the usual stuff. And she gave us enthusiastic reports from the front. She had a boyfriend that she really loved. (He's now a curator at the Guggenheim). Every beautiful loop cruising heart of saturday night wild lovely memory of my adolescence is due to Heather obligingly sticking me in the back of the car when she and her prettier friends went out on the town, Aerosmith blasting loud enough to damage your kidneys. When I moved back here I was really looking forward to striking up our friendship, but it didn't happen. We had lunch once, I think. Our daughters were the same age, but she never invited Lilly over. She cut off from everyone from high school, I found out. None of know why.
Last summer, her dad died, and while he was in the hospital for 3 weeks, accomplishing this, she called me almost every night. Late. We would talk and talk--about her dad, about everything. We used to do that in high school. Then he died. I went to the funeral with Jay and I remember thinking, well this is terrible, but at least Heather and I are friends again. But afterwards, I didn't hear from her. I left a few messages but my calls didn't get returned, so I gave up.
So there we were yesterday, watching the parade. I tried to point out Nick in the lineup, but couldn't find him. Just a sea of trumpets. Then we made fun of people going by, which is what we always used to do. She's really funny--skinny and blonde, pretty wrinkled now,--and she laughs at her own jokes which makes the whole thing funnier. She had her two boys with her, and they scrambled for candy with the other children, almost under the wheels of the oncoming floats.
Lilly was getting restless, so I said goodbye.
"We have to go to Ernie's."
"Happy birthday--the 23rd right?" she said.
"Yeah--41 can you believe it?"
"Well, you look 28."
"Thanks!"
"If you like, cover up that little pouchy thing under your chin---hahahahaha!"
"I thought my cleavage would distract from that." My lack of breasts has been an ancient joke.
"Now that it's by your belly button."
I flip her off and leave.
So, back to homecoming. The mosque is about5 blocks from the parade route. I like to watch it on 9th street, because there's a coffee shop right there I can duck into. It was a beautiful day--just perfect. 55 degrees, blue blue cloudless skies the leaves just starting to go golden. Lilly came with me, with her camera. She's at this phase where she's looking down on the mass culture. I'm a little dismayed by this because what I know that she doesn't is that cynicism is coat you borrow at first that you can't then take off with any ease. I mean, cynicism, the real nasty life sapping stuff will hit and strangle every sunny day eventually--why start so early? But both my children don't know that yet--they just want to be cool. So there she was, in an oversized grey cashmere sweater, cargo capris and, accidentally--a hat with the home team's logo on it. "Darn!" she said, "now they'll all think I actually care about this." We came to 9th street, in front of the Episcopal church, and we'd arrived just in time. We could hear the bands up the street and see the lights of the motorcycle cops leading the parade. And right there, in front of us, was my best friend from highschool, Heather.
Heather is 2 years older than me and we grew up together. Heather taught me to drive and how to put on mascara and, incidentally, how to roll a joint. Heather was the first of our group to do everything: the usual stuff. And she gave us enthusiastic reports from the front. She had a boyfriend that she really loved. (He's now a curator at the Guggenheim). Every beautiful loop cruising heart of saturday night wild lovely memory of my adolescence is due to Heather obligingly sticking me in the back of the car when she and her prettier friends went out on the town, Aerosmith blasting loud enough to damage your kidneys. When I moved back here I was really looking forward to striking up our friendship, but it didn't happen. We had lunch once, I think. Our daughters were the same age, but she never invited Lilly over. She cut off from everyone from high school, I found out. None of know why.
Last summer, her dad died, and while he was in the hospital for 3 weeks, accomplishing this, she called me almost every night. Late. We would talk and talk--about her dad, about everything. We used to do that in high school. Then he died. I went to the funeral with Jay and I remember thinking, well this is terrible, but at least Heather and I are friends again. But afterwards, I didn't hear from her. I left a few messages but my calls didn't get returned, so I gave up.
So there we were yesterday, watching the parade. I tried to point out Nick in the lineup, but couldn't find him. Just a sea of trumpets. Then we made fun of people going by, which is what we always used to do. She's really funny--skinny and blonde, pretty wrinkled now,--and she laughs at her own jokes which makes the whole thing funnier. She had her two boys with her, and they scrambled for candy with the other children, almost under the wheels of the oncoming floats.
Lilly was getting restless, so I said goodbye.
"We have to go to Ernie's."
"Happy birthday--the 23rd right?" she said.
"Yeah--41 can you believe it?"
"Well, you look 28."
"Thanks!"
"If you like, cover up that little pouchy thing under your chin---hahahahaha!"
"I thought my cleavage would distract from that." My lack of breasts has been an ancient joke.
"Now that it's by your belly button."
I flip her off and leave.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Rock Climbing
I ordered a chair off of ebay yesterday. $499 for a leather club chair + ottoman. It's a pretty good price, I think. There's a chair at Target for $299--no ottoman. It's hard to tell from a picture. My mother said that I needed someplace comfortable to sit in my living room and for once, I agree with her. She said I needed a place for a man to sit down. Maybe.
I have a boyfriend, as I've mentioned. His name is Jay. We've been together 2 years. He's a climber (rocks, not social haha). He's kind of famous in that community. He's older--in his early fifties, and sometimes we'll be camping at a site somewhere and he'll be being dismissed by the younger people as just some old guy--then they watch him go up the face of a cliff like a spider or some sort of rock lizard and one of them will say, "Wait--are you....?" He loves it when that happens, although to give him credit, he does a really good job of pretending he doesn't. Then at night, people show up at our campsite 2 by 2, like pilgrims. And we never have to eat the food we bring.
I lived in a house full of climbers at Dartmouth. Dartmouth's a big climbing school--or it used to be. They lived to climb, and when they weren't climbing, they would do crossword puzzles. I didn't start climbing then, but I did start doing crossword puzzles. I just figured climbing would happen.
When Jay and I started dating, I begged him to take me climbing, but he wouldn't. "It would be like me showing up at your band and sitting in on the spoons." Which was sort of a crappy thing to say. Finally, though, after a year, he did take me climbing, and I was pretty good, which surprised him. So for Christmas that year he bought me a harness and climbing shoes. What I haven't told him is that everytime I finish a climb--make it to the top--I feel like having a nervous breakdown. I feel like I'm defusing a bomb, or working statistics problems--only with my whole body and a 3 story drop beneath me if I screw up. For some reason, I can't get it into my head there's a rope on me to keep me safe--I start going and something in my lizard brain kicks in and says, "okay--this is it. Climb or die." It's kind of like trauma nursing.
It baffles me that there are people now who consider themselves climbers who have never actually climbed on real rock. To me that's the whole point. Embracing the mother, literally.
Baggins, our ICU fellow, who I've told you about (Where's the Soul) started climbing recently, too. He dated a girl, a nursing student--terrible nurse--arrogant and unskilled, left patients in their own stool at the end of her shift---who was also a climber and she got him into it. There's a small climbing community in one of the larger cities around here, gym climbers, and no one was very kind to her (a lot of climbing chicks are, as a rule, kind of pissy. They're usually pretty well educated, and not very attractive, and they're awful to other women. The ones I've met seem to believe their hairy armpits confer some sort of moral superiority) Anyways, Jay told me, a few years ago she developed a massive crush on this English pilot in this group and pretty much just followed him around like a puppy dog. It became a running joke, this besotted coed, hanging on his every whim. One of the women in the group, an artist, made a life size cardboard cutout of her and took it along to parties where she wasn't present. Well, she may be a crappy nurse but she certainly didn't deserve that. That's typical of that crowd--they think they're clever, but they're just kind of mean and base.
And that's why you shouldn't climb in a gym. It will steal your soul.
That's my 1/2 hour. I have to go watch Nick in the homecomeing parade.
I have a boyfriend, as I've mentioned. His name is Jay. We've been together 2 years. He's a climber (rocks, not social haha). He's kind of famous in that community. He's older--in his early fifties, and sometimes we'll be camping at a site somewhere and he'll be being dismissed by the younger people as just some old guy--then they watch him go up the face of a cliff like a spider or some sort of rock lizard and one of them will say, "Wait--are you....?" He loves it when that happens, although to give him credit, he does a really good job of pretending he doesn't. Then at night, people show up at our campsite 2 by 2, like pilgrims. And we never have to eat the food we bring.
I lived in a house full of climbers at Dartmouth. Dartmouth's a big climbing school--or it used to be. They lived to climb, and when they weren't climbing, they would do crossword puzzles. I didn't start climbing then, but I did start doing crossword puzzles. I just figured climbing would happen.
When Jay and I started dating, I begged him to take me climbing, but he wouldn't. "It would be like me showing up at your band and sitting in on the spoons." Which was sort of a crappy thing to say. Finally, though, after a year, he did take me climbing, and I was pretty good, which surprised him. So for Christmas that year he bought me a harness and climbing shoes. What I haven't told him is that everytime I finish a climb--make it to the top--I feel like having a nervous breakdown. I feel like I'm defusing a bomb, or working statistics problems--only with my whole body and a 3 story drop beneath me if I screw up. For some reason, I can't get it into my head there's a rope on me to keep me safe--I start going and something in my lizard brain kicks in and says, "okay--this is it. Climb or die." It's kind of like trauma nursing.
It baffles me that there are people now who consider themselves climbers who have never actually climbed on real rock. To me that's the whole point. Embracing the mother, literally.
Baggins, our ICU fellow, who I've told you about (Where's the Soul) started climbing recently, too. He dated a girl, a nursing student--terrible nurse--arrogant and unskilled, left patients in their own stool at the end of her shift---who was also a climber and she got him into it. There's a small climbing community in one of the larger cities around here, gym climbers, and no one was very kind to her (a lot of climbing chicks are, as a rule, kind of pissy. They're usually pretty well educated, and not very attractive, and they're awful to other women. The ones I've met seem to believe their hairy armpits confer some sort of moral superiority) Anyways, Jay told me, a few years ago she developed a massive crush on this English pilot in this group and pretty much just followed him around like a puppy dog. It became a running joke, this besotted coed, hanging on his every whim. One of the women in the group, an artist, made a life size cardboard cutout of her and took it along to parties where she wasn't present. Well, she may be a crappy nurse but she certainly didn't deserve that. That's typical of that crowd--they think they're clever, but they're just kind of mean and base.
And that's why you shouldn't climb in a gym. It will steal your soul.
That's my 1/2 hour. I have to go watch Nick in the homecomeing parade.
Friday, October 19, 2007
The Blue Trunk
I'm doing things in reverse order this morning. Usually I sit first, then write, but the children are home this morning, and I don't want them to know about my blog. It's all right--they'll sleep late. They sleep like rocks.
Both my children want to be writers. Nick has written a 400+ page sci-fi novel. He's been writing since he was five. When he was in third grade, he wrote a 128 page novel called Kid Wars. The premise was that there were these two rival gangs of kids in our neighborhood, and they mainly fought each other with high powered water guns. There were also evil paper boy ninjas--which I thought was sort of a masterstroke. He made all his friends characters in the books. He followed it up with a sequel: Band Wars. I'll let you guess the plot. His third grade teacher (who quit teaching the very next year) was a little burned out let him read his book out loud to the class an hour each day, it was terrific encouragement. He's up most nights, pounding til 2 or 3 am. Then he's exhausted the next morning, then he throws up on the way to school. His grades aren't what they should be, of course. I took away tv and video games during the week on advice of my analyst, and they went up a little bit--no more D's at least--but then my analyst suggested forbidding writing, or curtailing it, and I didn't do it. Never get in the way of a passion, I think.
Lilly writes more realistic stories, thoughtful stuff, good character development. She notices things, details, and gets them down. She doesn't like to read them out loud. Her reading choices are better, too. For example, I realized this summer that she'd plowed her way through all the victorians--George Eliot, Thomas Hardy (he was a victorian, wasn't he?)--and she loves Jane Austen. Then she whacked her way through Gilgamesh and Aeschylus. Pretty good for someone who didn't read til 3rd grade. I was really worried about her.
I wrote a book when I was 19. Someone actually gave me money to do it. It was a children's fantasy novel. Lilly finally got me to show it to her.
She came back from Florida at the end of the summer and said at dinner that night, "Dad says that the blue trunk in your room is filled with short stories and that you even have a book in there and that I'm supposed to ask you to let me read it."
So that night I opened the trunk and dug out the manuscript for Lilly. "Oh my god, I can't believe he was right! This has been in your room this whole time!" I didn't hear anything for a few days, then a few weeks. I was really nervous. Finally, I asked her, "what did you think of the book?" She was eating breakfast. She looked up at me with a careful expression. She's usually terrible about hurting people's feelings--just blurts things out--but when she's careful, it's almost worse, because she hasn't learned yet to cover well.
"You're a better writer, now, aren't you?" she asked.
Ouch.
Back in the trunk!
That's my 1/2 hour.
Both my children want to be writers. Nick has written a 400+ page sci-fi novel. He's been writing since he was five. When he was in third grade, he wrote a 128 page novel called Kid Wars. The premise was that there were these two rival gangs of kids in our neighborhood, and they mainly fought each other with high powered water guns. There were also evil paper boy ninjas--which I thought was sort of a masterstroke. He made all his friends characters in the books. He followed it up with a sequel: Band Wars. I'll let you guess the plot. His third grade teacher (who quit teaching the very next year) was a little burned out let him read his book out loud to the class an hour each day, it was terrific encouragement. He's up most nights, pounding til 2 or 3 am. Then he's exhausted the next morning, then he throws up on the way to school. His grades aren't what they should be, of course. I took away tv and video games during the week on advice of my analyst, and they went up a little bit--no more D's at least--but then my analyst suggested forbidding writing, or curtailing it, and I didn't do it. Never get in the way of a passion, I think.
Lilly writes more realistic stories, thoughtful stuff, good character development. She notices things, details, and gets them down. She doesn't like to read them out loud. Her reading choices are better, too. For example, I realized this summer that she'd plowed her way through all the victorians--George Eliot, Thomas Hardy (he was a victorian, wasn't he?)--and she loves Jane Austen. Then she whacked her way through Gilgamesh and Aeschylus. Pretty good for someone who didn't read til 3rd grade. I was really worried about her.
I wrote a book when I was 19. Someone actually gave me money to do it. It was a children's fantasy novel. Lilly finally got me to show it to her.
She came back from Florida at the end of the summer and said at dinner that night, "Dad says that the blue trunk in your room is filled with short stories and that you even have a book in there and that I'm supposed to ask you to let me read it."
So that night I opened the trunk and dug out the manuscript for Lilly. "Oh my god, I can't believe he was right! This has been in your room this whole time!" I didn't hear anything for a few days, then a few weeks. I was really nervous. Finally, I asked her, "what did you think of the book?" She was eating breakfast. She looked up at me with a careful expression. She's usually terrible about hurting people's feelings--just blurts things out--but when she's careful, it's almost worse, because she hasn't learned yet to cover well.
"You're a better writer, now, aren't you?" she asked.
Ouch.
Back in the trunk!
That's my 1/2 hour.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
If You See the Buddha at Target, Buy Him!
The farther I get from my zafu, the more complicated life becomes. If I could just stay there, breathing, things might have a chance of staying simple.
I don't actually have a zafu. I have two blue and white chintz throw pillows from my first apartment with the stuffing coming out that I stack. I've eschewed the zafu because I think it's pretentious. I finally bought a buddha from Target last year. There was some discussion in the magazine, Shambala Sun decrying the wide availability of discount buddhas, but I think this is okay. I think, the more buddhas hanging around the better. And buddhas used to be so expensive! Why should I have to pay 50 bucks or more for a 4 inch high statue of the buddha? My buddha was on sale at Target for $10, because he had a little chip. In spite of being mass produced, he has a very beautiful expression on his face. Thurman--I forget his first name--Uma's dad, said it's very important to have beautiful buddhas and mine fits the bill. I went without one for 21 years. Then I turned 40 and said, "what the hell, I'm going to buy a buddha." I think the distaste for mass produced buddhas is elitist--a knot of the ego. Careful of your own traps! If we are all buddhas, it doesn't matter. If the buddha is inside, the buddha is outside, and just because it rolls off the factory belt, it's still the same stuff--all made out of you. So careful, fellow travelers, don't be so precious.Thanks to a suggestion from Thich Naht Hahn I have room in my basement that I've set aside--a futon, a buddha and a packet of incense and matches with an abalone shell to catch the ash from the incense are its only furnishings. We call it the peace room. The peace room has a unique status in our house. Sometimes, my teenagers fight with each other and me and one of us, believe it or not, can become totally irrational. What has happened now that we have the peace room, is that the family member who is doing most of the screaming will at some point yell, "Leave me alone! I hate you! I'm going to the peace room!" And then they'll stomp off and go inside and slam and lock the door.
I've been sitting for 22 years now. I haven't made any progress at all, I sit on that damn cushion for 30 minutes most mornings and think about the same shit in this order: 1)Am I failing my children? 2)Will I ever get married? 3)Is this still helping my wrinkles? 4)Should I be cleaning instead? 4)Imaginary interviews with Oprah Winfrey 5)Patients. I briefly return to my breath between each flight of thought. "Oh," I think anxiously, "I'm supposed to be breathing! Breathe, damn you, breathe! Focus." Then I think, "that's not what I'm supposed to think." And then I think "what is 'should' what does that mean?" Then I worry about whether all the incense I've been breathing in every day for the last 22 years is going to give me emphysema. Then the alarm goes off, thank god, and I'm done with the whole damn thing. The reason I keep doing it is because when I don't, people notice. And it does help with wrinkles. A lot.
When the children are out of town and I'm not in bed snuggling with my boyfriend (he lives on a farm in the county and I stay over when my kids are gone), I go to Seido's house. He's a college professor and a monk in the Rinzai tradition--which is not the tradition I came up in. I came up in Soto and if anyone ever reads this blog who cares about these sorts of things, they'll say there's a big difference, but, honestly, there isn't. The heart of it is still the same: waking up. But the Rinzai's are a little more hard-assed then the Soto's, suits our aging working class Boston boy, Seido, the poet son of a plumber. I always forget the damn form--who bows first, how many times. I think my brain only had room for one set of ritual instructions: those of the Anglican church. Nothing else sticks. Seido always glares at me, then hisses instructions "you're supposed to bow after me..." "you're late" And then I sit and the only way my meditation at hokkukuan differs from mine at home is this: "Can Seido tell what sort of useless crap I'm thinking? Is it obvious?"
When I was doing my mental health clinicals at our State Hospital for the criminally insane (they don't do them there anymore--one of the students was attacked, or thought she was being attacked. She wasn't. She was just being an idiot.) we had to teach a group of inmates to do something, and I taught my group how to meditate. None of the other students had many people show up, but my lesson was packed. The staff was worried because the small room had too many people, and they weren't sure how to control it. We also had to turn the lights off, which was a battle with the powers that be. "Just five minutes," I begged. Candles were out, of course. They also forbade me to let people take their shoes off. I agreed, but then, when everyone was in there, told them to go ahead and do it. Sitting on the floor had to be negotiated, too. But we did it. I told them a little about Zen and practice and showed them a mudra and how to sit. I told them they would think about all sorts of things--tv, friends, enemies imaginary things, friendly things, scary things, but told them to just keep breathing through it. Then we all did it together. 5 minutes of silence, sitting and breathing. And for once, my inner monologue stopped, I was just thinking about my breath and how I had to keep breathing for the people around me. This great giddy wave of delight swept through me. I almost started giggling. I felt so happy. When I was five, a butterfly flew into my nightgown when I went outside one morning. I felt like that. Then the chime rang, 5 minutes. The lights came back on, we bowed to each other and the inmates filed out.
"that went really well," one of the guards said. "I didn't think that was going to work at all."
Me either.
I don't actually have a zafu. I have two blue and white chintz throw pillows from my first apartment with the stuffing coming out that I stack. I've eschewed the zafu because I think it's pretentious. I finally bought a buddha from Target last year. There was some discussion in the magazine, Shambala Sun decrying the wide availability of discount buddhas, but I think this is okay. I think, the more buddhas hanging around the better. And buddhas used to be so expensive! Why should I have to pay 50 bucks or more for a 4 inch high statue of the buddha? My buddha was on sale at Target for $10, because he had a little chip. In spite of being mass produced, he has a very beautiful expression on his face. Thurman--I forget his first name--Uma's dad, said it's very important to have beautiful buddhas and mine fits the bill. I went without one for 21 years. Then I turned 40 and said, "what the hell, I'm going to buy a buddha." I think the distaste for mass produced buddhas is elitist--a knot of the ego. Careful of your own traps! If we are all buddhas, it doesn't matter. If the buddha is inside, the buddha is outside, and just because it rolls off the factory belt, it's still the same stuff--all made out of you. So careful, fellow travelers, don't be so precious.Thanks to a suggestion from Thich Naht Hahn I have room in my basement that I've set aside--a futon, a buddha and a packet of incense and matches with an abalone shell to catch the ash from the incense are its only furnishings. We call it the peace room. The peace room has a unique status in our house. Sometimes, my teenagers fight with each other and me and one of us, believe it or not, can become totally irrational. What has happened now that we have the peace room, is that the family member who is doing most of the screaming will at some point yell, "Leave me alone! I hate you! I'm going to the peace room!" And then they'll stomp off and go inside and slam and lock the door.
I've been sitting for 22 years now. I haven't made any progress at all, I sit on that damn cushion for 30 minutes most mornings and think about the same shit in this order: 1)Am I failing my children? 2)Will I ever get married? 3)Is this still helping my wrinkles? 4)Should I be cleaning instead? 4)Imaginary interviews with Oprah Winfrey 5)Patients. I briefly return to my breath between each flight of thought. "Oh," I think anxiously, "I'm supposed to be breathing! Breathe, damn you, breathe! Focus." Then I think, "that's not what I'm supposed to think." And then I think "what is 'should' what does that mean?" Then I worry about whether all the incense I've been breathing in every day for the last 22 years is going to give me emphysema. Then the alarm goes off, thank god, and I'm done with the whole damn thing. The reason I keep doing it is because when I don't, people notice. And it does help with wrinkles. A lot.
When the children are out of town and I'm not in bed snuggling with my boyfriend (he lives on a farm in the county and I stay over when my kids are gone), I go to Seido's house. He's a college professor and a monk in the Rinzai tradition--which is not the tradition I came up in. I came up in Soto and if anyone ever reads this blog who cares about these sorts of things, they'll say there's a big difference, but, honestly, there isn't. The heart of it is still the same: waking up. But the Rinzai's are a little more hard-assed then the Soto's, suits our aging working class Boston boy, Seido, the poet son of a plumber. I always forget the damn form--who bows first, how many times. I think my brain only had room for one set of ritual instructions: those of the Anglican church. Nothing else sticks. Seido always glares at me, then hisses instructions "you're supposed to bow after me..." "you're late" And then I sit and the only way my meditation at hokkukuan differs from mine at home is this: "Can Seido tell what sort of useless crap I'm thinking? Is it obvious?"
When I was doing my mental health clinicals at our State Hospital for the criminally insane (they don't do them there anymore--one of the students was attacked, or thought she was being attacked. She wasn't. She was just being an idiot.) we had to teach a group of inmates to do something, and I taught my group how to meditate. None of the other students had many people show up, but my lesson was packed. The staff was worried because the small room had too many people, and they weren't sure how to control it. We also had to turn the lights off, which was a battle with the powers that be. "Just five minutes," I begged. Candles were out, of course. They also forbade me to let people take their shoes off. I agreed, but then, when everyone was in there, told them to go ahead and do it. Sitting on the floor had to be negotiated, too. But we did it. I told them a little about Zen and practice and showed them a mudra and how to sit. I told them they would think about all sorts of things--tv, friends, enemies imaginary things, friendly things, scary things, but told them to just keep breathing through it. Then we all did it together. 5 minutes of silence, sitting and breathing. And for once, my inner monologue stopped, I was just thinking about my breath and how I had to keep breathing for the people around me. This great giddy wave of delight swept through me. I almost started giggling. I felt so happy. When I was five, a butterfly flew into my nightgown when I went outside one morning. I felt like that. Then the chime rang, 5 minutes. The lights came back on, we bowed to each other and the inmates filed out.
"that went really well," one of the guards said. "I didn't think that was going to work at all."
Me either.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Ernie's
It's raining this morning. I woke Nick up early. He has the PSAT's today, and he agreed, in honor of this momentous occasion, to actually eat breakfast. Nicholas hasn't eaten breakfast for almost ten years. He gets so nervous before school that he throws up sometimes. For awhile I could get him to eat chicken soup in the morning, but even that started making him sick. My father showed up at 6:15 am , in the dark in the rain, with a thermos of chicken noodle soup for him, but Nick had already agreed to go to Ernie's with me.
Art deco skipped our town: it left one building--Ernie's. Ernie's has green walls and black and white tile and red cushions on its counter stools and oxidizing old chrome on tables and countertops. I go there almost every day I'm not working. My father wouldn't step inside for years, because it used to be segregated, and he had gotten beat up by a couple of KA's in the 50's during a sit-in at the counter.
"I'm not giving them a dime." He'd say.
"It's not segregated any more."
"I don't care. It used to be and I'm not giving them a dime."
"It has new owners."
Eventually, we got him inside, because it was Lilly's birthday and that's where she wanted to eat. There was a middle-aged black couple sitting at the counter, which mollified my father somewhat, but not my mother. "Do the blacks hang out here much?" she leaned in and whispered, in a voice that could carry across a stadium. "You don't want Lilly being noticed by the black boys, they're so much farther along than the white boys. It's very hard for a girl to resist that." That's my mom.
This morning, there were only three people in the diner at 6:30 am. Talen, the waiter, who moonlights as a massage therapist, tattooed with native american symbols and dripping with significant jewelry--you know, stuff that probably has magical powers, that he received in some ceremony at the new moon or something--Racing Dave, who I'll tell you more about later, and Soupy Goldbaum, our town coroner/medical examiner.
Talen, once astonishingly, when Ernie's was really crowded one Sunday, actually felt me up. He edged by me and as he did so, gave my ass a loving, very thorough squeeze. It took a minute to register. I'm not the sort of woman this happens to. I'm sort of rumpled, as I've said before, and nondescript. At the time, I hadn't been on a date in 2 years. I stared at him, flabbergasted. Had this really happened? He gave me a wide grin and handed me a piece of bubble gum. I related this incident later that afternoon to my band (I play fiddle in a band).
"Groped!" James, our lead guitarist yelped. "Haley got groped at Ernie's! Did you like it?"
Actually, yes. Well, in my defense, it had been a very long time since anyone had shown any interest in groping me at all in any fashion.
Well, it never happened again, but Talen still hands me gum and remembers what I order. He's not the reason I go to Ernie's, but he might be one of them.
Soupy looked up bleary-eyed through his spectacles when we got up to leave, he hadn't even noticed us, which was typical. His hair was standing up in all directions. He was wearing a tie and a dress shirt, and typically, had forgotten to button the buttons underneath the tie. Soupy and my father have known each other since college. They're the same age. Soupy's a good man--he put one of my friends through nursing school. He sometimes forgets to tie his shoes, but he's a genius. He's our own CSI guy--I think they should make a show about him: Crockett County CSI. Las Vegas and Miami aren't the only place things happen! He helped me get through my first autopsy, taught me about shoving Vicks into my nostrils, instead of just beneath them, and we've been fast friends ever since. The first thing he said when he met me, in the autopsy room:
"Oh, dear, you look like an extreme vasodilator to me." Then he showed me where the bathrooms were, and every trashcan. I was a little insulted. Didn't I look tougher than that? But then he opened the thoracic cavity of the body on the table, a burn victim, and I started having uncontrollable dry heaves. I made it to the bathroom, but nothing came up. I just kept heaving, as if someone was punching me in the stomach. I started laughing, giggling hysterically, and heaving at the same time. Finally, Soupy came to the bathroom door and knocked. "I'm sorry," I said, laughing and retching at the same time. "I thought so," he said, nodding and handing me an immense jar of Vicks. "For you."
The sleeping girl (that's how I've come to think of her) was a ME hold, if she ever did die. I thought about asking Soupy. He'd know.
"Is this your son?" Soupy asked. "We never see him."
Lilly, whose school starts later than Nick's, is usually with me at Ernie's.
Nick nods and smiles. He's so sweet and shy.
"PSAT's." I explain.
"Good luck! I have to teach today, that's why I'm dressed up."
Should I tell him his shirt's unbuttoned? He looks so pleased with himself I decide against it.
"There's a rainbow outside," Soupy says, with his mouth full, gesturing toward the window with his fork. "Go see it."
Nick and I go outside and stand in the empty wet street. The sky is a weird yellow brown, but, sure enough, there's a rainbow arching over the town.
"Are leprechauns multi ethnic or just Irish?" Nick asks at the register, as I'm paying.
"I have no idea. They're probably mixed by now."
"Do rainbows actually end somewhere?"
"I keep looking," I answer, laughing. Talen takes my hand and places a piece of gum right in the center of my open palm. Then he flicks another piece at Nick. "Good luck on your test."
"Yep."
Art deco skipped our town: it left one building--Ernie's. Ernie's has green walls and black and white tile and red cushions on its counter stools and oxidizing old chrome on tables and countertops. I go there almost every day I'm not working. My father wouldn't step inside for years, because it used to be segregated, and he had gotten beat up by a couple of KA's in the 50's during a sit-in at the counter.
"I'm not giving them a dime." He'd say.
"It's not segregated any more."
"I don't care. It used to be and I'm not giving them a dime."
"It has new owners."
Eventually, we got him inside, because it was Lilly's birthday and that's where she wanted to eat. There was a middle-aged black couple sitting at the counter, which mollified my father somewhat, but not my mother. "Do the blacks hang out here much?" she leaned in and whispered, in a voice that could carry across a stadium. "You don't want Lilly being noticed by the black boys, they're so much farther along than the white boys. It's very hard for a girl to resist that." That's my mom.
This morning, there were only three people in the diner at 6:30 am. Talen, the waiter, who moonlights as a massage therapist, tattooed with native american symbols and dripping with significant jewelry--you know, stuff that probably has magical powers, that he received in some ceremony at the new moon or something--Racing Dave, who I'll tell you more about later, and Soupy Goldbaum, our town coroner/medical examiner.
Talen, once astonishingly, when Ernie's was really crowded one Sunday, actually felt me up. He edged by me and as he did so, gave my ass a loving, very thorough squeeze. It took a minute to register. I'm not the sort of woman this happens to. I'm sort of rumpled, as I've said before, and nondescript. At the time, I hadn't been on a date in 2 years. I stared at him, flabbergasted. Had this really happened? He gave me a wide grin and handed me a piece of bubble gum. I related this incident later that afternoon to my band (I play fiddle in a band).
"Groped!" James, our lead guitarist yelped. "Haley got groped at Ernie's! Did you like it?"
Actually, yes. Well, in my defense, it had been a very long time since anyone had shown any interest in groping me at all in any fashion.
Well, it never happened again, but Talen still hands me gum and remembers what I order. He's not the reason I go to Ernie's, but he might be one of them.
Soupy looked up bleary-eyed through his spectacles when we got up to leave, he hadn't even noticed us, which was typical. His hair was standing up in all directions. He was wearing a tie and a dress shirt, and typically, had forgotten to button the buttons underneath the tie. Soupy and my father have known each other since college. They're the same age. Soupy's a good man--he put one of my friends through nursing school. He sometimes forgets to tie his shoes, but he's a genius. He's our own CSI guy--I think they should make a show about him: Crockett County CSI. Las Vegas and Miami aren't the only place things happen! He helped me get through my first autopsy, taught me about shoving Vicks into my nostrils, instead of just beneath them, and we've been fast friends ever since. The first thing he said when he met me, in the autopsy room:
"Oh, dear, you look like an extreme vasodilator to me." Then he showed me where the bathrooms were, and every trashcan. I was a little insulted. Didn't I look tougher than that? But then he opened the thoracic cavity of the body on the table, a burn victim, and I started having uncontrollable dry heaves. I made it to the bathroom, but nothing came up. I just kept heaving, as if someone was punching me in the stomach. I started laughing, giggling hysterically, and heaving at the same time. Finally, Soupy came to the bathroom door and knocked. "I'm sorry," I said, laughing and retching at the same time. "I thought so," he said, nodding and handing me an immense jar of Vicks. "For you."
The sleeping girl (that's how I've come to think of her) was a ME hold, if she ever did die. I thought about asking Soupy. He'd know.
"Is this your son?" Soupy asked. "We never see him."
Lilly, whose school starts later than Nick's, is usually with me at Ernie's.
Nick nods and smiles. He's so sweet and shy.
"PSAT's." I explain.
"Good luck! I have to teach today, that's why I'm dressed up."
Should I tell him his shirt's unbuttoned? He looks so pleased with himself I decide against it.
"There's a rainbow outside," Soupy says, with his mouth full, gesturing toward the window with his fork. "Go see it."
Nick and I go outside and stand in the empty wet street. The sky is a weird yellow brown, but, sure enough, there's a rainbow arching over the town.
"Are leprechauns multi ethnic or just Irish?" Nick asks at the register, as I'm paying.
"I have no idea. They're probably mixed by now."
"Do rainbows actually end somewhere?"
"I keep looking," I answer, laughing. Talen takes my hand and places a piece of gum right in the center of my open palm. Then he flicks another piece at Nick. "Good luck on your test."
"Yep."
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
I am off today. It's my second day off. The first day off, I rattle around the house like a pinball and feel guilty for not doing anything, but truly, I can't think. I spent most of the day on the couch, reading Pillars of Earth by Ken Follett. It's tightly plotted, but there's no joy in the writing, you know? The story gets told, but the sentences never bloom. In the car, when I can wrestle control of the radio away from my daughter, Lilly, I've been listening to Brideshead Revisited. It's funny and sad, too, and it really hits at the heart of being deeply involved with an alcoholic. We all talked about that at dinner last night. We went to our favorite Italian restaurant and sat on the empty terrace. It was pretty cold, but we all had sweaters. We all brought our books. We eat out all the time. Almost every night. I know we shouldn't, but we always have such a nice time. At home, the kids eat fast, then disappear--online, homework, the phone. In the restaurant, they actually talk to me for something like 45 minutes!
We had all been reading at the table--we always bring books everywhere we go--when Nick put down his book and said, "Ok, are Sebastian and Charles gay?"
"I think so, maybe--he doesn't really say it directly, does he?"
And then Lilly said, "Do you think I'm gay?"
This is a question they both seem to be stuck on. I remember being stuck on it, too, at that age. I was really afraid of being gay.
Nick and I both say at the same time, "it's okay if you're gay." And then we all start laughing.
"Would I know by now, if I were?" Lilly asked
"Maybe..." Isaid, nervously putting butter on my bread. I hate talking about sex with the kids. Ackk!
"How would I know?" She persists.
"Do you want to hug and kiss other girls?"
"ugh blechh" she says.
"Do you want to kiss boys--I don't know, David or Eli or Brian?"
"Yuck gross."
"Okay, none of the boys you know now--but maybe sometime somewhere. Like the guy in Across the Universe."
"Oh. Okay."
The waitress comes back to our table. I order a glass of wine. Lilly and I are both vegetarians, so we get pesto--Nick seems to subsist mainly on turkey sandwiches. He orders a turkey sandwich. She leaves.
"The big issue with Sebastian," Nick said "is that he's an alcoholic."
Their dad was was an alcoholic. Now he's a born again christian, married to a paralegal with fake breasts. She used to be his secretary. I'm intrigued by the fake breasts, because they were purchased in lieu of paying Lilly's tuition. My father saw them last summer, when he dropped the kids off. Not all of them, obviously. Just their...effects. "Nice?" I asked him. He paused, thought, smiled. "Yes, very nice."
Nick and Lilly don't know their dad was an alcoholic, they don't know that their stepmom was his secretary, they don't know he doesn't help financially, ever. Or at least, until last night, I didn't think they knew anything about all that.
"It's funny," Lilly said, "you know, we've got all these drugs nowlike meth and whatever, but we could have just kept fucking everything up with alcohol. It was doing a perfectly good job."
"Don't say fuck."
She rolls her eyes. "Okay. Screw. Mess. Sorry."
"Yeah, we forget. Addiction is always the same beast, isn't it?"
"It just takes over their world, all about him. Everything becomes about him." Nick took a big bite of bread.
"Break it off," I corrected him. "Don't put the whole thing in your mouth." So of course, that's what he does, then he smiles with the bread over his teeth and makes monster noises. And then, with his mouth all full of bread, he said, "Dad wath n alcoholic, right?"
"What?" I didn't understand him at first.
He swallows the bread, drinks some Mountain Dew, and repeats himself.
"Did he talk to you about that?"I asked. I hoped my parents hadn't been talking about it.
"Yep."
I felt relieved. "Yep." I had no idea how far to take this conversation.
"He's better now." Lilly interjected.
"Well, good." I said.
And that seemed to be that. Funny world. Nicholas drove us home. He just got his license. No one was out on the streets, thank god. Who goes out to eat at 9pm on a Monday night? Us.
At home we all went back to reading. Nick commandeered the stereo and we all had to listen to the Chess soundtrack, which is his favorite piece of music. We trade off turns on the music at night, so we all have to suffer equally. Then we went to sleep. Nick always sleeps on the couch. He has a bedroom and a perfectly good bed but he says he feels safer on the couch. He started sleeping there when he was 8, right after we moved into the house. I let him do it a few nights, then it just never stopped. Oh well. I think about our sleeping princess in the ICU, I wonder if her mother ever came back. I think about how blessed I am to have children who will wake up.
We had all been reading at the table--we always bring books everywhere we go--when Nick put down his book and said, "Ok, are Sebastian and Charles gay?"
"I think so, maybe--he doesn't really say it directly, does he?"
And then Lilly said, "Do you think I'm gay?"
This is a question they both seem to be stuck on. I remember being stuck on it, too, at that age. I was really afraid of being gay.
Nick and I both say at the same time, "it's okay if you're gay." And then we all start laughing.
"Would I know by now, if I were?" Lilly asked
"Maybe..." Isaid, nervously putting butter on my bread. I hate talking about sex with the kids. Ackk!
"How would I know?" She persists.
"Do you want to hug and kiss other girls?"
"ugh blechh" she says.
"Do you want to kiss boys--I don't know, David or Eli or Brian?"
"Yuck gross."
"Okay, none of the boys you know now--but maybe sometime somewhere. Like the guy in Across the Universe."
"Oh. Okay."
The waitress comes back to our table. I order a glass of wine. Lilly and I are both vegetarians, so we get pesto--Nick seems to subsist mainly on turkey sandwiches. He orders a turkey sandwich. She leaves.
"The big issue with Sebastian," Nick said "is that he's an alcoholic."
Their dad was was an alcoholic. Now he's a born again christian, married to a paralegal with fake breasts. She used to be his secretary. I'm intrigued by the fake breasts, because they were purchased in lieu of paying Lilly's tuition. My father saw them last summer, when he dropped the kids off. Not all of them, obviously. Just their...effects. "Nice?" I asked him. He paused, thought, smiled. "Yes, very nice."
Nick and Lilly don't know their dad was an alcoholic, they don't know that their stepmom was his secretary, they don't know he doesn't help financially, ever. Or at least, until last night, I didn't think they knew anything about all that.
"It's funny," Lilly said, "you know, we've got all these drugs nowlike meth and whatever, but we could have just kept fucking everything up with alcohol. It was doing a perfectly good job."
"Don't say fuck."
She rolls her eyes. "Okay. Screw. Mess. Sorry."
"Yeah, we forget. Addiction is always the same beast, isn't it?"
"It just takes over their world, all about him. Everything becomes about him." Nick took a big bite of bread.
"Break it off," I corrected him. "Don't put the whole thing in your mouth." So of course, that's what he does, then he smiles with the bread over his teeth and makes monster noises. And then, with his mouth all full of bread, he said, "Dad wath n alcoholic, right?"
"What?" I didn't understand him at first.
He swallows the bread, drinks some Mountain Dew, and repeats himself.
"Did he talk to you about that?"I asked. I hoped my parents hadn't been talking about it.
"Yep."
I felt relieved. "Yep." I had no idea how far to take this conversation.
"He's better now." Lilly interjected.
"Well, good." I said.
And that seemed to be that. Funny world. Nicholas drove us home. He just got his license. No one was out on the streets, thank god. Who goes out to eat at 9pm on a Monday night? Us.
At home we all went back to reading. Nick commandeered the stereo and we all had to listen to the Chess soundtrack, which is his favorite piece of music. We trade off turns on the music at night, so we all have to suffer equally. Then we went to sleep. Nick always sleeps on the couch. He has a bedroom and a perfectly good bed but he says he feels safer on the couch. He started sleeping there when he was 8, right after we moved into the house. I let him do it a few nights, then it just never stopped. Oh well. I think about our sleeping princess in the ICU, I wonder if her mother ever came back. I think about how blessed I am to have children who will wake up.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Where's the soul?
We have a girl here in our unit who has been dead for two days. We don't know what to do. She's on life support--a machine is breathing for her, but her brain is dead. She's a teenager--came in as a trauma about two weeks ago. Her mother sat at her side for days. Now she's disappeared. Throughout, the mother never seemed to quite understand what was happening. For example, the mother said to me "I keep hearing the word 'anoxic' do you think that means this whole thing might have hurt her brain?" I had to help deliver the news with Baggins, our fellow. Baggins is all right. He's short and used to stink--until one of the nurses told him very bluntly to use deodorant. Problem solved! He walked right into the supply room, grabbed some speed stick and gave himself a swish in view of all of us. He used to be an army nurse and served in the Gulf war--the first one. He's a good doctor, but sometimes hard to take. The other residents, from more privileged backgrounds, really resent him and look down on him. He brags a lot. Things like "if I can't get that line, no one can." But it's true. I stick up for him quietly. He doesn't know it. There are a few residents in particular who make his life miserable, and when they're at the bedside screwing something up, I'll say very innocently "Do you want me to page Dr. Baggins?"--Sometimes the fact that he used to be a nurse makes him easier to work with, and sometimes it makes him harder.
Bedside, Baggins is never taken well by families. He lacks that patrician element of detachment most docs cultivate, and, being a former nurse, he doesn't believe he's God. His grammar's bad and he's kind of coarse and like all nurses, he doesn't know how to dress. but I don't mind him. Delivering hard news like that, though, is hard enough without Baggins beside you doing it.
"I'm so very sorry,"he finished.
The mother just nodded when we told her. "Are her other parts getting blood flow?" She asked calmly
"Yes."
"Why isn't her brain getting blood?"
The girl had been swimming in a pond at a band party at someone's farm. No one knew for sure how long she'd been under. They'd just lost track of her. They pulled her out and performed CPR. She was life-flighted to the ER, and when she arrived in our ICU she was able to respond and follow commands. Her CT scan was fine initially. This is one of the horrible things about head injuries--they can take awhile to develop. The brain swells gradually, so the injured can seem fine--and then worsens and, if you're unlucky, dies.
"Why was she okay when she came in? What did you do to her?" She asks this of Baggins. Baggins launched into a long explanation of anoxic injury. He loves to explain things. The mother lets him talk for awhile.
"What is the next step?" she asks
Baggins explains that the girl has been pronounced dead and that we are awaiting her (the mother's) decision on when to formally withdraw care.
"She could still wake up." The mother insists. Then her cell phone rings. She takes the call.
Baggins stares at her. We wait for a minute for her to get off the phone. She continues talking. We wait another five minutes. No sign of ending the conversation. Baggins gives me a look. Then he gets up and leaves.
I sit next to her quietly, waiting for her to finish. She keeps chatting, ignoring me. I wait a few more minutes, but she keeps talking, ignoring me. I stand up, touch her shoulder. She looks at me, throws me a beautiful, graceful smile, dismisses me with a wave and turns back to her phone.
I went back to the unit. The mother didn't return for the rest of the afternoon. Or that evening. Or the next day. We can't find her. The girl is lying there alone. Waiting. We're all waiting. We have no idea what to do. She looks like she's sleeping. She's like a princess in some fairy tale gone wrong.
Late Sunday afternoon, an old man came to the room. "Are you the nurse?" he asks. The nurse. It's an interesting turn of phrase: "the nurse" Everyone uses it. There's a nice functional anonymity to it. There are people in our lives that we need to have not be people. We need the role they play, but we don't need any messy personality to deal with, so that we can live out our own dramas without really realizing we are part of a greater whole. The story can still be about us.
"Yes," I said, "I'm the nurse."
"Can you tell me how she's doing?"
I always feel like an asshole for saying this, but I have to, to strangers. My boyfriend says I've turned into "the man" "Do you have the password?" I ask.
"I'm the farmer." He says. Ah. He owns the pond.
"Ah." then "would you like to go inside the room?"
"Is that all right, without the password?"
"No one else is here." I shrug.
He goes to the door and stands there, looking at the girl. He doesn't go inside. I get up and stand next to him.
"Is her mother here?" he asks.
"No."
"Do you know when she'll be back?"
I shake my head. "No one is here."
He stands there a moment longer. "Jesus have mercy on us," he says quietly, not just saying it, but really asking. Then he leaves.
And for some reason, that's when I lost it. I've been taking care of this girl for two weeks, there have been days when I haven't even left the room, we were working so hard to save her. You get focused on your tasks sometimes, you forget the simple sadness. My pet peeve is selfishness, losing the big picture. And I do it all the time.
But I can't lose it in a way that anyone can see, especially my supervisor Hycwicz. More on him later. I'll get silently reproached with melodrama. I can't leave the unit, my wonderful sensitive staff will know I'm upset right away. (Other nurses are such a pain in the ass that way--especially ones you work with closely) So I go into the patient's room and step into the unused shower, where I can't be seen, and then I cry.
And that's my half hour.
Bedside, Baggins is never taken well by families. He lacks that patrician element of detachment most docs cultivate, and, being a former nurse, he doesn't believe he's God. His grammar's bad and he's kind of coarse and like all nurses, he doesn't know how to dress. but I don't mind him. Delivering hard news like that, though, is hard enough without Baggins beside you doing it.
"I'm so very sorry,"he finished.
The mother just nodded when we told her. "Are her other parts getting blood flow?" She asked calmly
"Yes."
"Why isn't her brain getting blood?"
The girl had been swimming in a pond at a band party at someone's farm. No one knew for sure how long she'd been under. They'd just lost track of her. They pulled her out and performed CPR. She was life-flighted to the ER, and when she arrived in our ICU she was able to respond and follow commands. Her CT scan was fine initially. This is one of the horrible things about head injuries--they can take awhile to develop. The brain swells gradually, so the injured can seem fine--and then worsens and, if you're unlucky, dies.
"Why was she okay when she came in? What did you do to her?" She asks this of Baggins. Baggins launched into a long explanation of anoxic injury. He loves to explain things. The mother lets him talk for awhile.
"What is the next step?" she asks
Baggins explains that the girl has been pronounced dead and that we are awaiting her (the mother's) decision on when to formally withdraw care.
"She could still wake up." The mother insists. Then her cell phone rings. She takes the call.
Baggins stares at her. We wait for a minute for her to get off the phone. She continues talking. We wait another five minutes. No sign of ending the conversation. Baggins gives me a look. Then he gets up and leaves.
I sit next to her quietly, waiting for her to finish. She keeps chatting, ignoring me. I wait a few more minutes, but she keeps talking, ignoring me. I stand up, touch her shoulder. She looks at me, throws me a beautiful, graceful smile, dismisses me with a wave and turns back to her phone.
I went back to the unit. The mother didn't return for the rest of the afternoon. Or that evening. Or the next day. We can't find her. The girl is lying there alone. Waiting. We're all waiting. We have no idea what to do. She looks like she's sleeping. She's like a princess in some fairy tale gone wrong.
Late Sunday afternoon, an old man came to the room. "Are you the nurse?" he asks. The nurse. It's an interesting turn of phrase: "the nurse" Everyone uses it. There's a nice functional anonymity to it. There are people in our lives that we need to have not be people. We need the role they play, but we don't need any messy personality to deal with, so that we can live out our own dramas without really realizing we are part of a greater whole. The story can still be about us.
"Yes," I said, "I'm the nurse."
"Can you tell me how she's doing?"
I always feel like an asshole for saying this, but I have to, to strangers. My boyfriend says I've turned into "the man" "Do you have the password?" I ask.
"I'm the farmer." He says. Ah. He owns the pond.
"Ah." then "would you like to go inside the room?"
"Is that all right, without the password?"
"No one else is here." I shrug.
He goes to the door and stands there, looking at the girl. He doesn't go inside. I get up and stand next to him.
"Is her mother here?" he asks.
"No."
"Do you know when she'll be back?"
I shake my head. "No one is here."
He stands there a moment longer. "Jesus have mercy on us," he says quietly, not just saying it, but really asking. Then he leaves.
And for some reason, that's when I lost it. I've been taking care of this girl for two weeks, there have been days when I haven't even left the room, we were working so hard to save her. You get focused on your tasks sometimes, you forget the simple sadness. My pet peeve is selfishness, losing the big picture. And I do it all the time.
But I can't lose it in a way that anyone can see, especially my supervisor Hycwicz. More on him later. I'll get silently reproached with melodrama. I can't leave the unit, my wonderful sensitive staff will know I'm upset right away. (Other nurses are such a pain in the ass that way--especially ones you work with closely) So I go into the patient's room and step into the unused shower, where I can't be seen, and then I cry.
And that's my half hour.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Introductions
I'm a nurse, and nobody ever gets it right about nurses. We're beneath the radar of popular culture. People in America like to hear about doctors. Through shows like ER and Grey's Anatomy, House and heck, even Scrubs, we get to live vicariously through doctors. They have all the sexy power--they make all the money (eventually) and, most importantly, for most of us, they will be making decisions about most of us that will involve our most brutal battles--our end games. They're like demigods, so it's natural that our culture has formed a mini-cult around them--humanizing them, making them accessible to us. It's natural, and I don't resent it too much, but we need to know about nurses, too, so this blog is to tell their stories. If you're reading this, I want you to know our perspective--or at least, my perspective!
So, here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to spend a half hour a day telling you about my life as a nurse, and I'll try to avoid breaking any HIPAA regulations, or exposing my hospital to any legal repercussions, or causing my colleagues any undue embarrassment, or losing my job! Write me if you'd like.
So, let's begin.
Me: I work in a trauma/surgical ICU in a medium-sized city. I grew up here, but moved away when I was seventeen. I returned at 34 with two kids in tow. Balzac has a character called "La Marana" in one of his short stories and I'm her: La Marana is poor sometimes and rich sometimes and doesn't care a whit. She just keeps on dancing through. I've done everything and seen everything and been everywhere. I've been rich, which was okay, and I've been so poor that I've had teeth fall out from poor nutrition--but that was just because I was too proud to ask for help. I'm quiet and rumpled and most people aren't too aware of me. I have too much family money, probably, to seed much ambition. No one knows this about me, either.
When I was in my mid thirties, I decided I was tired of being frivolous. I've been a practicing zen buddhist for 21 years--well I don't know whether I really get to claim that--I started because I heard meditation prevents wrinkes (it does!)--and I started really thinking about the bodhisattva vows that we say in Japanese at the beginning of every session--and step by step, I started getting my hands into the muck of the world--and boy, are my hands in it now.
Well, that's my 1/2 hour. Talk to you tomorrow.
So, here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to spend a half hour a day telling you about my life as a nurse, and I'll try to avoid breaking any HIPAA regulations, or exposing my hospital to any legal repercussions, or causing my colleagues any undue embarrassment, or losing my job! Write me if you'd like.
So, let's begin.
Me: I work in a trauma/surgical ICU in a medium-sized city. I grew up here, but moved away when I was seventeen. I returned at 34 with two kids in tow. Balzac has a character called "La Marana" in one of his short stories and I'm her: La Marana is poor sometimes and rich sometimes and doesn't care a whit. She just keeps on dancing through. I've done everything and seen everything and been everywhere. I've been rich, which was okay, and I've been so poor that I've had teeth fall out from poor nutrition--but that was just because I was too proud to ask for help. I'm quiet and rumpled and most people aren't too aware of me. I have too much family money, probably, to seed much ambition. No one knows this about me, either.
When I was in my mid thirties, I decided I was tired of being frivolous. I've been a practicing zen buddhist for 21 years--well I don't know whether I really get to claim that--I started because I heard meditation prevents wrinkes (it does!)--and I started really thinking about the bodhisattva vows that we say in Japanese at the beginning of every session--and step by step, I started getting my hands into the muck of the world--and boy, are my hands in it now.
Well, that's my 1/2 hour. Talk to you tomorrow.
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