Yesterday, at Wednesday afternoon zazen, which I barely made after an afternoon spent out at the administration learning "how to be The Man" (listen, they really have classes on this! Management training they call it. I feel like a spy for the peons). Making it involved Silva Mind Control acrobatics, frantically visualizing convenient parking spaces, as well as illegal u-turns performed right under the nose of campus security. Very exciting. The temperature dropping, the wind cutting through my beautiful wool Talbot's plaid skirt. Saw Seido, coming across the brick plaza with his bags of zafus, wind blown crow skirts swirling around him, like something from a dream. Met him half-way to help carry them. His new book of poetry just came out. Here, let's plug it, to the two people who ever read this--Seido Ray Ronci--This Rented Body. I haven't read it yet. But I read Skeleton of the Crow--I forgot that was the title! That's funny, because I always think of him as this big wind-blown tattered crow--like the ones who used to hang out in the pine trees in front of Sanborn Library at Dartmouth.
The day had been full of poetry. Literally. It really began the day before. Lilly had the day off from school and wanted to get her learner's permit, so we drove out to the drivers license building, which is this terrible low brick building built in the 70's when people had the bright idea to get rid of windows. So it feels like a prison--fluorescent lit rabbit warren corridors, dirty gray carpet. I used to go there for food stamps. It feels poor and dirty--institutionally poor and dirty. The worst it gets. I hadn't brought a book, I realized, sitting in the windowless waiting room while Lilly was in taking her test, so I went outside and got the only book in the car, the anthology for the Poetry Out Loud competition. Outside in the parking lot, I looked around--beautiful gray winter views of the power plant, belching smoke and the trailer park. Acres of asphalt. How do you redeem this place? I wonder, shaking my head. I go back inside.
Suddenly, a girl appears in the hall, running barefoot on the filthy carpet as fast as she can. She's about 16. Her hair is dark red and wet, and she's wearing a white silk chiffon dress with silver spangles that floats behind her as she runs like a spray of foam. She turns a corner and disappears. I stand still, wondering if I've really seen her. No one else is in the hall. The feeling rises, that strange bubble I call the tummy smile, and which is probably a little free delight. I go back to the waiting room, sit down, open the book. The first poem is Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold. I read:
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hearIts melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
As I read this, it seems that I can really hear the ocean. I finish, the sound of the sea still in my ears, and I realize that it's the ventilation system, ebbing and flowing, creaking its stale air out. The dusty vent is right above me. I had noticed it when I first came in, and it seemed just to be one more horrible thing about the building, but now it was a stage effect provided by the good fairies (or the ghost of Matthew Arnold) to bring the poem home to my soul. It's funny how the most unlikely things can suddenly turn magical. It's funny how everything is in everything else. I was going to write more, but that's my 1/2 hour! You know the rules...
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Weigh-In
I am still exhausted. I'm better now, but today I was so tired I felt that I was in an alternate reality. I literally couldn't filter. I was in a bookstore, looking for something for Jay, and everything sounded the same to me--radio, the traffic outside, the sound of numbers being punched on the clerk's cell phone. They were all equal. They were all deafening. I couldn't read the titles on the spines. I had to leave.
I slept in this morning. Scheduled an acupuncture appointment for 9am. Almost slept through it. Had a dream that my acupuncturist showed up, in the rain, at my house. "Let's do it here," she said. She was dripping wet. I was half-asleep, struggling into a skirt and t-shirt, opening the door. Woke up. Bright sunlight on the bed. 10 til. Made it. A few minutes late. Lying on the quiet table, watching the paper cranes slowly twist on the mobile above me. Trying to grin and bear it through the moxa on the needles in my feet.
"Those are getting hot," I tell her.
"Those are out." She replies.
This always happens to me. Acupuncture illusions. I'm convinced there are needles where there aren't any.
"It's the chi." She tells me.
Every piece of my body is sore.
At 2:38pm, it occurs to me that there is no way I am going to be able to handle a 12-hour day feeling like this. I call in.
I am much relieved. I don't even feel guilty.
At 4am this morning, I woke up, crawled into bed with my birdlike Lilly and just held her to me. She lost 1/2 a pound. We had the weigh in. I was my usual awful self. The way I always am when I am afraid. A medical student did the intake. A beautiful, slender, Indian American girl dressed just perfectly, with candy apple red slippers, good brown wool pants and a brown sweater. On her right wrist was a beautiful golden bracelet made of delicate filigree, a temple dancer's ornament, on her left wrist was a perfectly sober timex watch with a leather band. She looked just like I think everybody ought to. Sigh. But she asked the stupidest questions!
"Do you participate in any sports?" She asked Lilly.
"That's in the chart." I point out. "Lilly hasn't been allowed to participate in sports for the last 3 months."
"Well," she says, "I wanted to hear what Lilly has to say." Patronizing. Doctors.
Then: "I see you choose not to meet with a dietician. Why was that?"
"We meet with the dietician all the time."
"You didn't last time."
"If you look in the chart, you'll see that we met with the dietician at every other visit, but the last one because she'd gained enough weight, Dr. Carson said we didn't have to. "
"When was your last period?" She asks Lilly, ignoring me.
"3 weeks ago," I interrupt. "At her last appointment."
"I wanted to see if she'd had one since."
"Are you anticipating a 3 week cycle? "
The student leaves.
"You don't have to do that, Mom." Lilly says. "She's just a student. She has to learn." But I hate her. For her beauty, her future privilege and her red shoes. And the fact she's dressed according to my standards. "You think you're being nice, just because you're smiling, But no one's fooled. You look like you're going to eat someone. It's creepy."
"She should read the chart." I'll eat her alive. I hate going to Dr. Carson. I hate the way it makes me feel. I hate being around women who have made better choices and who are richer and more successful than I am. I hate the way doctors treat nurses. I hate being treated that way by another woman. I think of Dr. Pitney. Somehow, Dr. Pitney wasn't like this. What is it about Dr. Carson that irks me so? I hate that Lilly's in this position. I can see what she thinks of us. I can see that she thinks I'm too thin and too looks conscious. She thinks I've done this to her. And the scary thing is that I think she's right.
"Lillylillylilly," I say, kissing her hair and crying. "I'm so sorry. I love you so."
"I know, mommie." Lilly says. "What time is it?"
"4"
"You can sleep in here, if you want." Lilly says.
Pebbles the cat, who goes where I go, jumps on the bed. Right on Lilly. Who hates her. "Go away, Pebbles!" Lilly says, pushing the cat off the bed. The cat jumps back on.
"Do you think I'm a bad person?" Lilly asks me after a moment.
"No."
"Do you think I'm like that guy, that psycho killer, Holmes, and I can't feel anything?"
"No."
"I hate Pebbles." Lilly says.
"Yes, but we've had Pebbles for 9 years and you haven't tortured her or killed her. Throwing her off your bed doesn't count as part of the homicidal triumvirate. You like the puppy. You love Marlowe."
"Ok." Lilly concedes. "Sometimes, though, I don't think I feel things the way my friends do. Sometimes I don't think I'm a nice person. I feel like an outsider."
"Well," I think about this. "I think everybody has to work at that. I think that's why all the religions have prayer and daily reminders and everybody has to keep getting together and meeting all the time. It's set up because everyone has to work at it, right?"
"I guess." She doesn't sound sure.
I know she doesn't feel like everybody else. Is that why she starves herself? Because she feels like a bad person? That simple? That horrible?
That's my 1/2 hour.
I slept in this morning. Scheduled an acupuncture appointment for 9am. Almost slept through it. Had a dream that my acupuncturist showed up, in the rain, at my house. "Let's do it here," she said. She was dripping wet. I was half-asleep, struggling into a skirt and t-shirt, opening the door. Woke up. Bright sunlight on the bed. 10 til. Made it. A few minutes late. Lying on the quiet table, watching the paper cranes slowly twist on the mobile above me. Trying to grin and bear it through the moxa on the needles in my feet.
"Those are getting hot," I tell her.
"Those are out." She replies.
This always happens to me. Acupuncture illusions. I'm convinced there are needles where there aren't any.
"It's the chi." She tells me.
Every piece of my body is sore.
At 2:38pm, it occurs to me that there is no way I am going to be able to handle a 12-hour day feeling like this. I call in.
I am much relieved. I don't even feel guilty.
At 4am this morning, I woke up, crawled into bed with my birdlike Lilly and just held her to me. She lost 1/2 a pound. We had the weigh in. I was my usual awful self. The way I always am when I am afraid. A medical student did the intake. A beautiful, slender, Indian American girl dressed just perfectly, with candy apple red slippers, good brown wool pants and a brown sweater. On her right wrist was a beautiful golden bracelet made of delicate filigree, a temple dancer's ornament, on her left wrist was a perfectly sober timex watch with a leather band. She looked just like I think everybody ought to. Sigh. But she asked the stupidest questions!
"Do you participate in any sports?" She asked Lilly.
"That's in the chart." I point out. "Lilly hasn't been allowed to participate in sports for the last 3 months."
"Well," she says, "I wanted to hear what Lilly has to say." Patronizing. Doctors.
Then: "I see you choose not to meet with a dietician. Why was that?"
"We meet with the dietician all the time."
"You didn't last time."
"If you look in the chart, you'll see that we met with the dietician at every other visit, but the last one because she'd gained enough weight, Dr. Carson said we didn't have to. "
"When was your last period?" She asks Lilly, ignoring me.
"3 weeks ago," I interrupt. "At her last appointment."
"I wanted to see if she'd had one since."
"Are you anticipating a 3 week cycle? "
The student leaves.
"You don't have to do that, Mom." Lilly says. "She's just a student. She has to learn." But I hate her. For her beauty, her future privilege and her red shoes. And the fact she's dressed according to my standards. "You think you're being nice, just because you're smiling, But no one's fooled. You look like you're going to eat someone. It's creepy."
"She should read the chart." I'll eat her alive. I hate going to Dr. Carson. I hate the way it makes me feel. I hate being around women who have made better choices and who are richer and more successful than I am. I hate the way doctors treat nurses. I hate being treated that way by another woman. I think of Dr. Pitney. Somehow, Dr. Pitney wasn't like this. What is it about Dr. Carson that irks me so? I hate that Lilly's in this position. I can see what she thinks of us. I can see that she thinks I'm too thin and too looks conscious. She thinks I've done this to her. And the scary thing is that I think she's right.
"Lillylillylilly," I say, kissing her hair and crying. "I'm so sorry. I love you so."
"I know, mommie." Lilly says. "What time is it?"
"4"
"You can sleep in here, if you want." Lilly says.
Pebbles the cat, who goes where I go, jumps on the bed. Right on Lilly. Who hates her. "Go away, Pebbles!" Lilly says, pushing the cat off the bed. The cat jumps back on.
"Do you think I'm a bad person?" Lilly asks me after a moment.
"No."
"Do you think I'm like that guy, that psycho killer, Holmes, and I can't feel anything?"
"No."
"I hate Pebbles." Lilly says.
"Yes, but we've had Pebbles for 9 years and you haven't tortured her or killed her. Throwing her off your bed doesn't count as part of the homicidal triumvirate. You like the puppy. You love Marlowe."
"Ok." Lilly concedes. "Sometimes, though, I don't think I feel things the way my friends do. Sometimes I don't think I'm a nice person. I feel like an outsider."
"Well," I think about this. "I think everybody has to work at that. I think that's why all the religions have prayer and daily reminders and everybody has to keep getting together and meeting all the time. It's set up because everyone has to work at it, right?"
"I guess." She doesn't sound sure.
I know she doesn't feel like everybody else. Is that why she starves herself? Because she feels like a bad person? That simple? That horrible?
That's my 1/2 hour.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Fear and Dreams
I'm still creaky. The house is messy, too.
How am I ever going to handle going back to work?
Everything seems different. The light seems harsher. I feel older. I feel like I can see through people. I feel as if I have disappeared.
I am tackling my grad school work one weary task at a time. Tick, tick, tick. My life feels so fragmented. I'm going to go out to Jay's tonight, but I don't want to. How is it that I never managed to put together an integrated home?
Through facebook, I'm back in touch with a lot of my old Dartmouth friends--and their lives all seem so whole and good. They all have spouses and pics up of them clutching small children. They make pancakes on the weekend. I work all weekend. What happened to me? Why not me? One silly choice at a time, I guess. 42. I'm not in such a bad place, but it's not exactly the place I wanted to be. And it's just going to get worse, you know. I'm going to get older, wrinklier, uglier, and my body will eventually just fall apart and die. Happens to everyone. That's such a kicker. That just sucks! One of the nurses I work with just overdosed on crack over the weekend--young, pretty. What an idiot. How terrible and sad. This sounds really dramatic--but I can feel my mortality. I can feel my creaking, future skeleton encased in my body, and it's just about unbearable.
I've been thinking about Chicago. I just finished a book, Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. It was very disturbing. All about H.H. Holmes, a serial killer, who killed between 27 and 200 people, mostly young women, right under everyone's noses. He also killed three children, the Pitezel children. Those poor children. Those stupid parents. I tried to find out what became of the children he left alive, but couldn't. I may bitch and moan about homeland security and cameras everywhere, but you know, in this day and age of cell phone signal triangulation and credit card tracking and cameras on stoplights, it would be pretty hard to just make 200 young women disappear. Vanish. You can't vanish anymore. Maybe that's a good, safe, thing. When my great grandmother and great great aunt were in Chicago around that time, they lived at the Three Arts Club on Dearborn and Goethe. Couldn't disappear there! It makes you understand why people were so insistent on cloistering their girls, why letters of introduction, family, chains of association were so important.
Reading about Chicago made me remember living there, remember living in the Three Arts Club. I had a dream about it last year, it was in ruins. I wandered through the halls, looking for familiar things, not finding any. I was trying to find the courtyard. There was a young man at a draughtsman's table, and he looked at me over his spectacles, smiled and said, "The secret to life is to have a courtyard in your soul." I woke up. I didn't think about the dream until a few days ago. Apparently, the Three Arts Club is no more. Betrayed by its board, the sanctuary Jane Addams had so carefully set up for woman artists, the sanctuary so many generations of my family have found, has been dismantled and sold. For 13 million dollars. Who profited, I wonder? How could they do that? I really don't want to get involved in this, but I feel I have to.
Well, that's my 1/2 hour.
How am I ever going to handle going back to work?
Everything seems different. The light seems harsher. I feel older. I feel like I can see through people. I feel as if I have disappeared.
I am tackling my grad school work one weary task at a time. Tick, tick, tick. My life feels so fragmented. I'm going to go out to Jay's tonight, but I don't want to. How is it that I never managed to put together an integrated home?
Through facebook, I'm back in touch with a lot of my old Dartmouth friends--and their lives all seem so whole and good. They all have spouses and pics up of them clutching small children. They make pancakes on the weekend. I work all weekend. What happened to me? Why not me? One silly choice at a time, I guess. 42. I'm not in such a bad place, but it's not exactly the place I wanted to be. And it's just going to get worse, you know. I'm going to get older, wrinklier, uglier, and my body will eventually just fall apart and die. Happens to everyone. That's such a kicker. That just sucks! One of the nurses I work with just overdosed on crack over the weekend--young, pretty. What an idiot. How terrible and sad. This sounds really dramatic--but I can feel my mortality. I can feel my creaking, future skeleton encased in my body, and it's just about unbearable.
I've been thinking about Chicago. I just finished a book, Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. It was very disturbing. All about H.H. Holmes, a serial killer, who killed between 27 and 200 people, mostly young women, right under everyone's noses. He also killed three children, the Pitezel children. Those poor children. Those stupid parents. I tried to find out what became of the children he left alive, but couldn't. I may bitch and moan about homeland security and cameras everywhere, but you know, in this day and age of cell phone signal triangulation and credit card tracking and cameras on stoplights, it would be pretty hard to just make 200 young women disappear. Vanish. You can't vanish anymore. Maybe that's a good, safe, thing. When my great grandmother and great great aunt were in Chicago around that time, they lived at the Three Arts Club on Dearborn and Goethe. Couldn't disappear there! It makes you understand why people were so insistent on cloistering their girls, why letters of introduction, family, chains of association were so important.
Reading about Chicago made me remember living there, remember living in the Three Arts Club. I had a dream about it last year, it was in ruins. I wandered through the halls, looking for familiar things, not finding any. I was trying to find the courtyard. There was a young man at a draughtsman's table, and he looked at me over his spectacles, smiled and said, "The secret to life is to have a courtyard in your soul." I woke up. I didn't think about the dream until a few days ago. Apparently, the Three Arts Club is no more. Betrayed by its board, the sanctuary Jane Addams had so carefully set up for woman artists, the sanctuary so many generations of my family have found, has been dismantled and sold. For 13 million dollars. Who profited, I wonder? How could they do that? I really don't want to get involved in this, but I feel I have to.
Well, that's my 1/2 hour.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Whining
My life is all about my poor throbbing tummy. I've been having gas--but even that hurts. I don't know whether to hold off on the painkillers and let my guts move, or avoid the pain and hope I don't get an obstruction. Maybe I can do both...an ileus would really suck. This experience is really going to help me a lot with my patients who have had abdominal surgery. I'm going to be much better at the bedside because of this. I keep inspecting my belly for a hernia. I'm kind of bruised around my umbilicus. I'm sick of this whole thing, right this minute. My father was here this morning. My parents are, generally, very nice people. But they're weirdly selfish. They take actions that to them feel like help--but are actually no help at all. For example, showing up at 3am at the hospital last night and waking me up. I mean, I'm the one who had surgery, right? And I'm the one who needs rest, right? But, there they are, complaining that no one appreciated the sacrifice they'd made by showing up at 3am.
"We didn't get any sleep either," they tell me self-righteously. "I noticed that we're the only people in your life who bothered to show up at 3am for you!" Frankly, it's kind of a white elephant of an action. Because I'm not grateful. Not at all. I think it's sort of self-centered and rude. Then, in the morning, when the sun was up and I was eating breakfast and could have sincerely done with some company, they came into the room and very sanctimoniously explained to me that they had to go home and get some sleep, because they were exhausted from being up all night at the hospital.
Oh. Okay? Then, while they were there, they kept asking me when the doctor was going to come by.
"I don't know." I told them. All my patients' family members ask me this.
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I don't know."
And they sort of treated me like some of the families treat the nurses--"Well, we want to hear what he says. You have no idea when he'll be by?"
"No idea."
"Well, morning? Afternoon? Lunchtime? "
"No idea."
And they're pissed. At me!
My father calls this morning. 6 am. I'm hoarse because they intubated me during surgery and my throat's pretty irritated, I also can't take very deep breaths.
He gets annoyed. "You're going to have to speak up! I can't hear you!" He goes on to announce that he can't help with Lilly this afternoon because he and mom have dinner reservations at the alumni club.
"At 3:15?" I ask.
"We need to get ready."
"But Lilly needs to see her therapist."
"Lilly can go a week without her therapist."
Well, actually, no, Lilly can't go a week without her therapist. Lilly is still only 80% of her body weight. She isn't nearly out of danger. She says things like, "My stomach is getting so big--it's so huge and white and fat. I can't stand it." (She's 5'9" and a size 2). So Nick is blowing off his after-school commitment (true, it was only a meeting of the Zombie Defense League--but he is an officer!) to take Lilly to her therapist.
In the best WASP tradition, you're really not supposed to have any real problems in my family. No one ever really takes the right action when something is really wrong. I do. But I'm the only one. When things are really screwing up and falling apart, my folks go into denial. It's funny, because they freak out over every other thing--snow flurries, if one of the kids is at a movie with friends, suspicious looking people on street corners (that man is looking at me, Elwood!), airplanes) but when something really happens, they are almost incapable of rising to the occasion.
For example, during Hurricane Andrew, my mother refused to evacuate and slept on the couch in front of a large plate glass window. The houses on both sides of hers were obliterated. It was only dumb luck that the storm left her unscathed.
"We didn't get any sleep either," they tell me self-righteously. "I noticed that we're the only people in your life who bothered to show up at 3am for you!" Frankly, it's kind of a white elephant of an action. Because I'm not grateful. Not at all. I think it's sort of self-centered and rude. Then, in the morning, when the sun was up and I was eating breakfast and could have sincerely done with some company, they came into the room and very sanctimoniously explained to me that they had to go home and get some sleep, because they were exhausted from being up all night at the hospital.
Oh. Okay? Then, while they were there, they kept asking me when the doctor was going to come by.
"I don't know." I told them. All my patients' family members ask me this.
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I don't know."
And they sort of treated me like some of the families treat the nurses--"Well, we want to hear what he says. You have no idea when he'll be by?"
"No idea."
"Well, morning? Afternoon? Lunchtime? "
"No idea."
And they're pissed. At me!
My father calls this morning. 6 am. I'm hoarse because they intubated me during surgery and my throat's pretty irritated, I also can't take very deep breaths.
He gets annoyed. "You're going to have to speak up! I can't hear you!" He goes on to announce that he can't help with Lilly this afternoon because he and mom have dinner reservations at the alumni club.
"At 3:15?" I ask.
"We need to get ready."
"But Lilly needs to see her therapist."
"Lilly can go a week without her therapist."
Well, actually, no, Lilly can't go a week without her therapist. Lilly is still only 80% of her body weight. She isn't nearly out of danger. She says things like, "My stomach is getting so big--it's so huge and white and fat. I can't stand it." (She's 5'9" and a size 2). So Nick is blowing off his after-school commitment (true, it was only a meeting of the Zombie Defense League--but he is an officer!) to take Lilly to her therapist.
In the best WASP tradition, you're really not supposed to have any real problems in my family. No one ever really takes the right action when something is really wrong. I do. But I'm the only one. When things are really screwing up and falling apart, my folks go into denial. It's funny, because they freak out over every other thing--snow flurries, if one of the kids is at a movie with friends, suspicious looking people on street corners (that man is looking at me, Elwood!), airplanes) but when something really happens, they are almost incapable of rising to the occasion.
For example, during Hurricane Andrew, my mother refused to evacuate and slept on the couch in front of a large plate glass window. The houses on both sides of hers were obliterated. It was only dumb luck that the storm left her unscathed.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
The Other Side
Here I am, on the couch. Can't move very well. Do you realize how many movements your stomach is connected to? From scratching your head to lifting a coffee cup. You use your stomach muscles for everything.
Forgive me if I ramble, I just had surgery yesterday, and I'm on a lot of painkillers! Woke up in the 5 am cold dark Sunday at the farm, felt a cramp--menstrual cramp? I never get them, but my period just started, so I thought, "first time for everything." Went into work, the pain kept getting worse and worse. Textbook appendicitis. Right Lower Quadrant pain, rebound tenderness, mid epigastric pain. Could hardly stand up, had to lean on chairs and counters to talk to people.
Finally, Wiz says, without looking at me. "What are you planning to do about this?"
I hadn't really planned to do anything. Just work, hope nothing happend that required me to move quickly--I was getting everything done. But he asked me, and all the sudden, I started crying. I have never been in so much pain.
"I want to go home." I gasp, like a little fool.
"Okay. I'll send you home at 3."
"Perfect."
But then, an hour later, Wiz comes over, sits down next to me. "Give me report. Get out of here." I don't even question him. Rattle off my 21 points, leave. In the break room, I curl up on the couch for a little bit before I even try to walk to my car. On my way out of the building, I have to sit down on the floor twice to rest. A few doctors pass me. No one asks if I'm all right, which I find funny.
I make it out to my car, drive home and immediately crawl into bed. Where I just lie there, open-eyed, in pain like an animal. I'm not bored or tired, because the pain is taking all my attention. Why I didn't go to the ER, I don't know. I mean, I knew what was going on. I guess I had some strange idea of talking myself out of it. Finally, Nick comes in. "You need to go to the hospital," he says. "I'm driving you."
So, here I am. Two days in the hospital, surgery--laparoscopic, but still tender. I haven't pooped yet. I'm a little worried about this. The weirdest thing was being a patient there. I was afraid to ask for pain killers at first, because I didn't want the people I work with to think I was a drug seeker. One of the ER docs came in, finally, after I'd been there 4 hours, and had been scanned, etc. "Are you having any pain?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Has anyone give you anything for pain?"
"No."
I get fentanyl. Which makes me feel dizzy, like I did when I had my first beer. The room spins, and people seem to keep showing up, over and over again. It doesn't hit the pain. Maybe for 5 minutes. Nick just sits next to me, friendly and silent. Then Jay shows up. And he's the same. Pleasant, quiet. Supportive. I feel I'm about as interesting as wet paint. I feel guilty. I call Wiz. "It's my appendix." I tell him. Subtext: see, I wasn't being melodramatic.
"Well, I thought so." He says. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone that you've been admitted. I will absolutely respect your privacy. Take care."
"But--" he hangs up. But I don't want to be in here by myself! I want love! I want my room crowded with people saying hi and sending me flowers. Geez. I love Wiz, but he's kind of a broken little toy in some ways. Do unto others is generally good, but sometimes you have to examine yourself for damage before you practice that.
The word got out a little bit, despite Wiz' best efforts. A couple of the residents popped by, one of the nurses I work with brought flowers, and our dietitian brought me a homemade malted milkshake at 11pm. My parents showed up at 3am, for some reason, and managed to get lost in the building. Security had to track them down.
The morphine gave me friendly dreams--benevolent monsters with big purple tongues, trees growing out of closets. Persian rugs. Jay sat with me, holding my hand. Now I'm home. And that's my 1/2 hour.
Forgive me if I ramble, I just had surgery yesterday, and I'm on a lot of painkillers! Woke up in the 5 am cold dark Sunday at the farm, felt a cramp--menstrual cramp? I never get them, but my period just started, so I thought, "first time for everything." Went into work, the pain kept getting worse and worse. Textbook appendicitis. Right Lower Quadrant pain, rebound tenderness, mid epigastric pain. Could hardly stand up, had to lean on chairs and counters to talk to people.
Finally, Wiz says, without looking at me. "What are you planning to do about this?"
I hadn't really planned to do anything. Just work, hope nothing happend that required me to move quickly--I was getting everything done. But he asked me, and all the sudden, I started crying. I have never been in so much pain.
"I want to go home." I gasp, like a little fool.
"Okay. I'll send you home at 3."
"Perfect."
But then, an hour later, Wiz comes over, sits down next to me. "Give me report. Get out of here." I don't even question him. Rattle off my 21 points, leave. In the break room, I curl up on the couch for a little bit before I even try to walk to my car. On my way out of the building, I have to sit down on the floor twice to rest. A few doctors pass me. No one asks if I'm all right, which I find funny.
I make it out to my car, drive home and immediately crawl into bed. Where I just lie there, open-eyed, in pain like an animal. I'm not bored or tired, because the pain is taking all my attention. Why I didn't go to the ER, I don't know. I mean, I knew what was going on. I guess I had some strange idea of talking myself out of it. Finally, Nick comes in. "You need to go to the hospital," he says. "I'm driving you."
So, here I am. Two days in the hospital, surgery--laparoscopic, but still tender. I haven't pooped yet. I'm a little worried about this. The weirdest thing was being a patient there. I was afraid to ask for pain killers at first, because I didn't want the people I work with to think I was a drug seeker. One of the ER docs came in, finally, after I'd been there 4 hours, and had been scanned, etc. "Are you having any pain?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Has anyone give you anything for pain?"
"No."
I get fentanyl. Which makes me feel dizzy, like I did when I had my first beer. The room spins, and people seem to keep showing up, over and over again. It doesn't hit the pain. Maybe for 5 minutes. Nick just sits next to me, friendly and silent. Then Jay shows up. And he's the same. Pleasant, quiet. Supportive. I feel I'm about as interesting as wet paint. I feel guilty. I call Wiz. "It's my appendix." I tell him. Subtext: see, I wasn't being melodramatic.
"Well, I thought so." He says. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone that you've been admitted. I will absolutely respect your privacy. Take care."
"But--" he hangs up. But I don't want to be in here by myself! I want love! I want my room crowded with people saying hi and sending me flowers. Geez. I love Wiz, but he's kind of a broken little toy in some ways. Do unto others is generally good, but sometimes you have to examine yourself for damage before you practice that.
The word got out a little bit, despite Wiz' best efforts. A couple of the residents popped by, one of the nurses I work with brought flowers, and our dietitian brought me a homemade malted milkshake at 11pm. My parents showed up at 3am, for some reason, and managed to get lost in the building. Security had to track them down.
The morphine gave me friendly dreams--benevolent monsters with big purple tongues, trees growing out of closets. Persian rugs. Jay sat with me, holding my hand. Now I'm home. And that's my 1/2 hour.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Fear
Well, the buddhists started playing together again. School's in session, which means the University Buddhist Association's meeting. I can't tell you how much I starve for this contact with other buddhists. I've talked about this before. It's a relatively new feeling. I used to do this mostly alone, in my little basement room, with my Target buddha, my kitchen timer, my health store incense and my little chime bowl that came from the Barnes & Noble Feng Shui kit my father bought me for Christmas ten years ago. Occasionally, I'd drop by Hokukuan,when the kids were at their dad's. But mostly I did it alone.
Now, though, I'm forty. And most of the people I know and work with in Little Dixie are fundamentalist Christians or Catholics--which is all well and good--but I want to sit around occasionally and not be the resident weirdo at least once a week. So here I am, in the basement of the student union with Seido and the other weirdos, Wednesday afternoons, 4:00 to 5:30. Lilly's shrink changed her appointment time to Wednesdays at 4, making it impossible to go any more, though. And then Lilly decided she wanted to play jazz piano, and the teacher's only slot is at 5. So there you have it. No more sangha for Mom.
But it really bothered me. So I had my father pick up Lilly from her shrink and take her to her piano lesson.
Bless him, he didn't question it.
"What do you need to do?" He asked.
"I have to go to the weekly Buddhist Association meeting." I said, matter-of-factly.
"Oh. Well, draw me a map."
I felt guilty at first on the way to Seido's office. It was cold and sunny, the light beginning to get warm and yellow, the snow on the ground reflecting the colors. I decided to cut across the quandrangle. I thought about something I'd read in Shambhala Sun that Chongyam Trungpa Rinpoche had said--that your senses, rather than being distractions, were your friends, because your senses showed you the infinite. It's so true. The slush, the students, the red brick buildings with their slate roofs. How beautiful. I got happy, like a little kid stamping in puddles.
At his office, I knocked on the door. (shave and a haircut) Seido opened it. "No toon can resist it," I said, shaking my head. He looked at me a little perplexed. I have Who Framed Roger Rabbit almost memorized (it was the only video we had in Miami for years and my children probably watched it a thousand times). I'm pretty sure Seido thinks I'm a total idiot.
"I'm here to help you with the cushions."
"What a nice surprise!" He was in high spirits. He looked better, like he'd been eating. And he'd shaved his beard. "How have you been?"
So I told him. 9 years. I've never told the man anything, I realized. Told him all about Lilly, grad school, etc.
"It's the culture." He said, shaking his head. "You've lost her to the culture." He holds forth on this at some length. In some ways, I agree, but you know, young women have been starving themselves since the middle-ages--so this may just be something young and weird. I think we blame a lot on the culture, when it's just sort of the same old wine in new bottles. I mean look at those Roman bastards. And we haven't changed so much. We're really just a bunch of bastards, and we struggle not to be.
We walk over to the union, set the cushions out. There's a beautiful young woman waiting for us there, with a notepad and a digital voice recorder. She has that sort of seamless cheap panted slick look the J-School girls all have. The smile that's used for a purpose. Reptilian. As Lilly says calmly, "Just because I say someone looks like a lizard, doesn't mean they still aren't pretty."
The other person there is Kevin, a faculty member.
"Do you mind if I observe?" She asks Seido.
"Why don't you sit with us?"
She gamely picks a cushion and breathes with us. Seido breaks it off early. During the meditation, someone comes in, stands at the door and comes in very quietly.
It's strange. Someone trying to move around quietly and slowly is more distracting than someone just coming in loudly and quickly. Bam. Plop. Click. It's over. I become convinced, sitting there, not moving, that this is an angry fundamentalist Christian gunman who is going to shoot us all. I become utterly, terrifyingly, and crazily convinced of this. What should I do? Should I just keep sitting? Will that be the ultimate exhibition of form? Maintaining my mudra while I'm shot? Should I turn and look at him? I fall back into the sort of terrifying thought patterns I did when I was 4 and I thought there was a bad person who lived outside my room who could listen to my thoughts. He wouldn't do anything bad to me as long as I pretended not to know about him. So as long as I kept pretending the gunman wasn't there, he wouldn't shoot us. Right? He just kept standing there, a shadow in the doorway.
Seido ended the session early. I turned and looked cautiously around. It was a photographer. I mean, I thought it probably was, since photographers and reporters usually go arm in arm...but...funny....fear. Fear of illusions. But fear feels, real, doesn't it?
That's my 1/2 hour.
Now, though, I'm forty. And most of the people I know and work with in Little Dixie are fundamentalist Christians or Catholics--which is all well and good--but I want to sit around occasionally and not be the resident weirdo at least once a week. So here I am, in the basement of the student union with Seido and the other weirdos, Wednesday afternoons, 4:00 to 5:30. Lilly's shrink changed her appointment time to Wednesdays at 4, making it impossible to go any more, though. And then Lilly decided she wanted to play jazz piano, and the teacher's only slot is at 5. So there you have it. No more sangha for Mom.
But it really bothered me. So I had my father pick up Lilly from her shrink and take her to her piano lesson.
Bless him, he didn't question it.
"What do you need to do?" He asked.
"I have to go to the weekly Buddhist Association meeting." I said, matter-of-factly.
"Oh. Well, draw me a map."
I felt guilty at first on the way to Seido's office. It was cold and sunny, the light beginning to get warm and yellow, the snow on the ground reflecting the colors. I decided to cut across the quandrangle. I thought about something I'd read in Shambhala Sun that Chongyam Trungpa Rinpoche had said--that your senses, rather than being distractions, were your friends, because your senses showed you the infinite. It's so true. The slush, the students, the red brick buildings with their slate roofs. How beautiful. I got happy, like a little kid stamping in puddles.
At his office, I knocked on the door. (shave and a haircut) Seido opened it. "No toon can resist it," I said, shaking my head. He looked at me a little perplexed. I have Who Framed Roger Rabbit almost memorized (it was the only video we had in Miami for years and my children probably watched it a thousand times). I'm pretty sure Seido thinks I'm a total idiot.
"I'm here to help you with the cushions."
"What a nice surprise!" He was in high spirits. He looked better, like he'd been eating. And he'd shaved his beard. "How have you been?"
So I told him. 9 years. I've never told the man anything, I realized. Told him all about Lilly, grad school, etc.
"It's the culture." He said, shaking his head. "You've lost her to the culture." He holds forth on this at some length. In some ways, I agree, but you know, young women have been starving themselves since the middle-ages--so this may just be something young and weird. I think we blame a lot on the culture, when it's just sort of the same old wine in new bottles. I mean look at those Roman bastards. And we haven't changed so much. We're really just a bunch of bastards, and we struggle not to be.
We walk over to the union, set the cushions out. There's a beautiful young woman waiting for us there, with a notepad and a digital voice recorder. She has that sort of seamless cheap panted slick look the J-School girls all have. The smile that's used for a purpose. Reptilian. As Lilly says calmly, "Just because I say someone looks like a lizard, doesn't mean they still aren't pretty."
The other person there is Kevin, a faculty member.
"Do you mind if I observe?" She asks Seido.
"Why don't you sit with us?"
She gamely picks a cushion and breathes with us. Seido breaks it off early. During the meditation, someone comes in, stands at the door and comes in very quietly.
It's strange. Someone trying to move around quietly and slowly is more distracting than someone just coming in loudly and quickly. Bam. Plop. Click. It's over. I become convinced, sitting there, not moving, that this is an angry fundamentalist Christian gunman who is going to shoot us all. I become utterly, terrifyingly, and crazily convinced of this. What should I do? Should I just keep sitting? Will that be the ultimate exhibition of form? Maintaining my mudra while I'm shot? Should I turn and look at him? I fall back into the sort of terrifying thought patterns I did when I was 4 and I thought there was a bad person who lived outside my room who could listen to my thoughts. He wouldn't do anything bad to me as long as I pretended not to know about him. So as long as I kept pretending the gunman wasn't there, he wouldn't shoot us. Right? He just kept standing there, a shadow in the doorway.
Seido ended the session early. I turned and looked cautiously around. It was a photographer. I mean, I thought it probably was, since photographers and reporters usually go arm in arm...but...funny....fear. Fear of illusions. But fear feels, real, doesn't it?
That's my 1/2 hour.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Auditions
A long, long time ago, I went to Tanglewood.
I went accidentally.
My friend, Jennifer, played the flute. All she wanted to do was become a floutist. She practiced all the time. She drove two hours to the city twice a week to take lessons with the principal floutist of the symphony. She was technically perfect, but she could never get the feel of it, the soul. This was to become one of the tragedies of her life. I always marveled at it. How she could be so proficient, yet sound so mechanical, when she obviously loved it so passionately? I thought maybe she was sabotaging herself somehow--holding herself back. She just couldn't send her spirit into it--just couldn't connect. The terrible thing was...she knew it. She knew what was missing.
She wanted to go to Tanglewood. She was originally from the East Coast and knew all about it. But she didn't want to go there alone. So she dragged me along to the auditions.
The auditions were in the city--two hours away. And nobody in our state had heard of Tanglewood except us, so we were the only two people there. They were held in an old high school gym. Jenny went first. Then it was my turn. I wasn't really there to get in, so I didn't put very much effort into my violin playing. After I was done, the guy holding the auditions (who turned out to be the director of the camp, Scott Schillin) winced and asked me, "Do you do anything else?"
"I have the lead in Oklahoma..."I told him.
He smiled and launched in to "Surrey with the Fringe on the Top" singing Curly's part. We went through all the songs--played for about 45 minutes. I got into the vocal program. Not because I could sing particularly well, but because he liked me, I think.
It turned out to be a bit of a mistake on his part. I didn't understand that I'd been let in because of my beaming personality, and refused to act grateful. I thought I should have access to the master classes and protested when we were not all allowed to audition. It was a very difficult summer. It was the summer when I came up very hard against the fact that there were other people who were better than I was. That I had limitations. That there was this whole class of beautiful, rare, gifted artists who, no matter how hard I tried, would always be a cut above. I was used to getting all the attention, and it wasn't going to happen here. A lot happened. And it's probably another story.
But last week, Lilly auditioned for the vocal program at Tanglewood...and Lilly can actually sing.
The auditions were in Chicago. We drove up ahead of the snow. My new years resolution is to be 15 minutes early for everything this year--and we arrived at 5 til three. Her auditions (we thought) were at 310. An old army jail had been converted to a music building--the cells whitewashed and carpeted and turned into practice rooms. The place gave me the creeps. Gas stations and jails can almost never be redone. Unhappiness seeped through the cold walls. Bad vibes.
"We thought you weren't coming," the woman at the desk told us. She was knitting a little pair of blue socks. Baby socks? "We rearranged all the other kids."
"But we're early!" I said.
"It's 5 til 3. Your audition's at 3."
"3:10." I corrected her.
"3. It's all right. She can still audition. What will you be singing?"
"Sebben Crudele." Lilly answers, nonplussed. Both she and I had double-checked the audition time.
"And your second piece?"
"Second piece?" echoed Lilly. "I thought we only needed one."
"It says very clearly you need two pieces."
There's another mother. Her daughter has just gone in. This mother is squat, british, with a kind, seamed face. Through the doors I can hear her daughter trilling an aria from Cosi fan Tutti. She sounds amazing.
"Isn't there something else she knows--from choir or church or something--something she could sing a capella?" She asks us.
"Well...I could sing Samba..." Lilly ventures.
"Jazz is unacceptable." The blue sock knitting woman says. "It'll just have to be one. And is your accompanist here?"
We stare at her.
"You don't have an accompanist." She states. Looks at us like we're idiots. Sighs. "Well, I'll ask Phyllis if she can play this." She takes the sheet music and leaves.
She returns. "Phyllis can play this in her sleep. She's played this hundreds of times."
Great, I think. Not only are we late and unprepared, the one song Lilly will be singing, 240 girls have already auditioned with.
Lilly goes into one of the jail cells to warm up. I try to make small talk. Mistake.
"So," I ask. "Is Scott Schillin still the director?"
"I've never heard of Scott Schillin. Phyllis Hoffman has been the director for years and years and years."
"What about Leonard Atherton. He was the director of the vocal program."
"Are you sure? I've never heard of him, either."
Did I actually go there? I wonder. Did I dream this up.
"Did you go there?" the British lady asks me. "What was it like?"
"Well, apparently it's been about 200 years, but it was magic."
"You went on voice?" Blue sock lady asks me.
"Yes."
"You still sing?"
"No. I wasn't very good." I laugh.
"Well, let's hope your daughter's better."
Geez.
Lilly comes out. "I think I'm ready." She's wearing her snow boots. She's wearing a black cable knit cashmere sweater--one of my old ones. There are moth holes in the sleeve, but she refuses to wear anything else. Black tights. Black short skirt. Her auburn hair swings around her sharp little jaw. She's put on 4 pounds since the anorexia thing started. She's a little softer around the corners, but not by much. She doesn't look like a person anymore. She looks like an anime character. All eyes and legs. Oh, Lilly. Why couldn't we have gotten it right? She's always so dead on it in terms of schedules and details, I didn't even think to double check her. Just drove her up to Chicago. Nick's the one I always have to bird dog. Never Lilly. I feel as if I've been punched in the gut, looking at her.
"Break a leg," I tell her.
"oh--should I wear these?" she asks about her muddy boots. I run and fetch her real shoes.
We stayed in Evanston that night. At the Hilton Garden. Went to see Frost/Nixon. Walked arm and arm in the freezing snowy night, the muffled streets. I took her out to eat at a fancy restaurant to celebrate. Got the rack of lamb. She got the acorn squash. But she picked at the creme brulee on my plate and snatched some of the lamb--with her old greedy bad manners. And that hasn't happened in a very long time. So, all in all, in spite of the fact that we spent about $350 we didn't have driving there, eating, and staying in the hotel for a 5 minute audition we proceeded to bomb--I consider it a success.
That's my 1/2 hour.
I went accidentally.
My friend, Jennifer, played the flute. All she wanted to do was become a floutist. She practiced all the time. She drove two hours to the city twice a week to take lessons with the principal floutist of the symphony. She was technically perfect, but she could never get the feel of it, the soul. This was to become one of the tragedies of her life. I always marveled at it. How she could be so proficient, yet sound so mechanical, when she obviously loved it so passionately? I thought maybe she was sabotaging herself somehow--holding herself back. She just couldn't send her spirit into it--just couldn't connect. The terrible thing was...she knew it. She knew what was missing.
She wanted to go to Tanglewood. She was originally from the East Coast and knew all about it. But she didn't want to go there alone. So she dragged me along to the auditions.
The auditions were in the city--two hours away. And nobody in our state had heard of Tanglewood except us, so we were the only two people there. They were held in an old high school gym. Jenny went first. Then it was my turn. I wasn't really there to get in, so I didn't put very much effort into my violin playing. After I was done, the guy holding the auditions (who turned out to be the director of the camp, Scott Schillin) winced and asked me, "Do you do anything else?"
"I have the lead in Oklahoma..."I told him.
He smiled and launched in to "Surrey with the Fringe on the Top" singing Curly's part. We went through all the songs--played for about 45 minutes. I got into the vocal program. Not because I could sing particularly well, but because he liked me, I think.
It turned out to be a bit of a mistake on his part. I didn't understand that I'd been let in because of my beaming personality, and refused to act grateful. I thought I should have access to the master classes and protested when we were not all allowed to audition. It was a very difficult summer. It was the summer when I came up very hard against the fact that there were other people who were better than I was. That I had limitations. That there was this whole class of beautiful, rare, gifted artists who, no matter how hard I tried, would always be a cut above. I was used to getting all the attention, and it wasn't going to happen here. A lot happened. And it's probably another story.
But last week, Lilly auditioned for the vocal program at Tanglewood...and Lilly can actually sing.
The auditions were in Chicago. We drove up ahead of the snow. My new years resolution is to be 15 minutes early for everything this year--and we arrived at 5 til three. Her auditions (we thought) were at 310. An old army jail had been converted to a music building--the cells whitewashed and carpeted and turned into practice rooms. The place gave me the creeps. Gas stations and jails can almost never be redone. Unhappiness seeped through the cold walls. Bad vibes.
"We thought you weren't coming," the woman at the desk told us. She was knitting a little pair of blue socks. Baby socks? "We rearranged all the other kids."
"But we're early!" I said.
"It's 5 til 3. Your audition's at 3."
"3:10." I corrected her.
"3. It's all right. She can still audition. What will you be singing?"
"Sebben Crudele." Lilly answers, nonplussed. Both she and I had double-checked the audition time.
"And your second piece?"
"Second piece?" echoed Lilly. "I thought we only needed one."
"It says very clearly you need two pieces."
There's another mother. Her daughter has just gone in. This mother is squat, british, with a kind, seamed face. Through the doors I can hear her daughter trilling an aria from Cosi fan Tutti. She sounds amazing.
"Isn't there something else she knows--from choir or church or something--something she could sing a capella?" She asks us.
"Well...I could sing Samba..." Lilly ventures.
"Jazz is unacceptable." The blue sock knitting woman says. "It'll just have to be one. And is your accompanist here?"
We stare at her.
"You don't have an accompanist." She states. Looks at us like we're idiots. Sighs. "Well, I'll ask Phyllis if she can play this." She takes the sheet music and leaves.
She returns. "Phyllis can play this in her sleep. She's played this hundreds of times."
Great, I think. Not only are we late and unprepared, the one song Lilly will be singing, 240 girls have already auditioned with.
Lilly goes into one of the jail cells to warm up. I try to make small talk. Mistake.
"So," I ask. "Is Scott Schillin still the director?"
"I've never heard of Scott Schillin. Phyllis Hoffman has been the director for years and years and years."
"What about Leonard Atherton. He was the director of the vocal program."
"Are you sure? I've never heard of him, either."
Did I actually go there? I wonder. Did I dream this up.
"Did you go there?" the British lady asks me. "What was it like?"
"Well, apparently it's been about 200 years, but it was magic."
"You went on voice?" Blue sock lady asks me.
"Yes."
"You still sing?"
"No. I wasn't very good." I laugh.
"Well, let's hope your daughter's better."
Geez.
Lilly comes out. "I think I'm ready." She's wearing her snow boots. She's wearing a black cable knit cashmere sweater--one of my old ones. There are moth holes in the sleeve, but she refuses to wear anything else. Black tights. Black short skirt. Her auburn hair swings around her sharp little jaw. She's put on 4 pounds since the anorexia thing started. She's a little softer around the corners, but not by much. She doesn't look like a person anymore. She looks like an anime character. All eyes and legs. Oh, Lilly. Why couldn't we have gotten it right? She's always so dead on it in terms of schedules and details, I didn't even think to double check her. Just drove her up to Chicago. Nick's the one I always have to bird dog. Never Lilly. I feel as if I've been punched in the gut, looking at her.
"Break a leg," I tell her.
"oh--should I wear these?" she asks about her muddy boots. I run and fetch her real shoes.
We stayed in Evanston that night. At the Hilton Garden. Went to see Frost/Nixon. Walked arm and arm in the freezing snowy night, the muffled streets. I took her out to eat at a fancy restaurant to celebrate. Got the rack of lamb. She got the acorn squash. But she picked at the creme brulee on my plate and snatched some of the lamb--with her old greedy bad manners. And that hasn't happened in a very long time. So, all in all, in spite of the fact that we spent about $350 we didn't have driving there, eating, and staying in the hotel for a 5 minute audition we proceeded to bomb--I consider it a success.
That's my 1/2 hour.
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