Nick didn't get into Dartmouth.
But he got into Sewanee! And Loyola New Orleans! Big stuff. Unimaginable changes. What will we do without him? He's happy. He has a girlfriend who loves him and he's the district champion in Lincoln/Douglas Debate.
I'm not really surprised. He had the scores but not the grades.
Lilly went to Italy over spring break. She took 1029 pictures. She showed me all of them. They are all good. It's funny about Italy--any shot which includes the Pantheon is automatically a good shot. Very few pictures of her. 4 or 5 of her, standing in front of a fountain, looking out to the sea in Capri, hands in the pocket of her navy raincoat, auburn hair blowing around her face. Looking solemn and bemused and happy. A traveler. She told me people kept thinking she was Italian, and that only one Italian boy flirted with her. She sounded a little disappointed.
She brought us all presents--spent all the Euros, which she wasn't supposed to do--they were for emergencies, but, oh well. I now have beautiful red kid leather driving gloves and a cameo.
The cameo is of a mother and two little children standing by the sea. The mother is wearing a big hat. "See," Lilly said, "It's supposed to be you."
She also gained 4 pounds. Which made me ecstatic. "Maybe" I said, "you'll have to keep taking regular trips to Italy! Can they write a prescription for that?"
She didn't think it was funny. I always screw up. Now that the weight is finally coming back on, she's getting nervous again.
"Don't tell me I look healthy," she tells me in the car on the way back from the doctor's office. "Healthy means fat. Don't tell me anything. Are they going to let me get fat? How do we stop if we gain too much?"
We.
"Okay, Lilly," I tell her. "By healthy, I mean that hospitalization is not imminent. Is that okay?"
"Better."
But she does look healthy. All that pasta and gelato!
Thank you, Italy.
I had a dream while she was gone. I dreamt that Lilly was about 11 again. For some reason, we were in the hospital, in our Sunday best. This housekeeper, Jan, was also in the dream. She was wearing church clothes, too, along with a little sky blue hat with a veil and a round gold pin on a matching blue skirt suit. The place was flooding--the whole town was flooding. And we were trying to escape. "We need to pray the rosary," Jan said. So, in the dream, I started praying the rosary. Jan and Lilly joined me. We took turns saying hail marys. Then I woke up.
One of the things I don't even try to reconcile with my zen practice is my love of the Virgin Mary. My practice has been constant for the last 26 years, my marianism is sporadic, like a rain storm. I go a few weeks or months lighting candles and praying the rosary, then it dies down.
Our Lady of Charity is the Mary I got to know in Miami. Cobre de caridad. I used to have a candle lit to her all the time.
I think she appeared to me once. But I'm not sure. That's another story. That's my 1/2 hour.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Baxter
I haven't sat yet, today.
I woke up at 5am. Had a nightmare that I was in a reality show and one of my tasks was to be a waitress. Seido was the host of the show. It was a nightmare. I used to be a waitress. I was an awful one.
Worked the weekend, but not Friday. We have only half a floor full of patients. It's like a ghost hospital. My theory is that when people are careful about one thing, they are careful about everything. And everybody's being very careful about money right now. Everybody's very, very worried. Me, too. I think everyone feels that they were betrayed. It's hard to fix the blame, reasonably, and it probably falls squarely on our shoulders for adopting a set of values that leads basically to financial ruin and the grave. Smoking, overeating, bad nutrition and overspending on things you don't need. I mean, what did we expect?
But they, whoever they are, argued their case so convincingly. They seduced us.
I watched the Oscars last night with Lilly, and in the middle of it, they ran a spot for Master Card about a dog named Baxter. It was really cute. But what was it trying to get us to do? Go into debt! Hi, the economy's in the pit right now. Look at this cute dog, finding his way home. Debt got him home! Save cute dogs. Go into debt. Owe us.
They don't want your money. They want your time and soul for the next 30 years.
I have about 16,000 now in credit card debt. It wasn't obviously frivolous (ok, maybe some of it was). I've been paying it down steadily. Every month, there's a little less. It should be gone in 5 years.
Lilly's anorexia has been hard on us, but one of the things it has done has woken us up. It woke us up to the lie of image. You know, the images in the media work on such a subtle level, I'm almost not aware of making a choice to buy in. Cutting it out of our lives has been a blessing. But it's like the blinders have been lifted on everything else. It seems that I look at everything now and think, "What is this? Why am I choosing it?"
What builds actual power and stability in a family, in a person? The ability to be self-sustaining, right? The ability to feed and shelter oneself without being dependent on someone else, right? What does our culture do? It promotes a climate in which everyone is encouraged to mortgage their futures. In essence, it keeps us all slaves. Then they raise your rates, shorten the pay period, ruin your credit, so you can't get more purchasing power. They own you.
Part of the reason for all the foreclosures, I think, is that everyone was encouraged to borrow money to pay off credit card debt using their house as collateral. Bad idea, tying up the house.
Here's what I think we should do. I think we should all rebel. Quietly.
I think we should form credit clubs, and pay off each other's debt. We could work out some arrangement. Pay it, never get more. Put these people whose customer service centers aren't even in the United States (so we can't think, well, at least it's keeping us employed) out of business. Let these pikers who've so carelessly squandered our money and seduced the poor into debt fend for themselves. Then I think we should concentrate on making sure everyone has a clean roof over their head and the food pyramid to eat.
Ok. That's my 1/2 hour. I'm going to go sit now.
I'm thinking of getting a wood stove.
I woke up at 5am. Had a nightmare that I was in a reality show and one of my tasks was to be a waitress. Seido was the host of the show. It was a nightmare. I used to be a waitress. I was an awful one.
Worked the weekend, but not Friday. We have only half a floor full of patients. It's like a ghost hospital. My theory is that when people are careful about one thing, they are careful about everything. And everybody's being very careful about money right now. Everybody's very, very worried. Me, too. I think everyone feels that they were betrayed. It's hard to fix the blame, reasonably, and it probably falls squarely on our shoulders for adopting a set of values that leads basically to financial ruin and the grave. Smoking, overeating, bad nutrition and overspending on things you don't need. I mean, what did we expect?
But they, whoever they are, argued their case so convincingly. They seduced us.
I watched the Oscars last night with Lilly, and in the middle of it, they ran a spot for Master Card about a dog named Baxter. It was really cute. But what was it trying to get us to do? Go into debt! Hi, the economy's in the pit right now. Look at this cute dog, finding his way home. Debt got him home! Save cute dogs. Go into debt. Owe us.
They don't want your money. They want your time and soul for the next 30 years.
I have about 16,000 now in credit card debt. It wasn't obviously frivolous (ok, maybe some of it was). I've been paying it down steadily. Every month, there's a little less. It should be gone in 5 years.
Lilly's anorexia has been hard on us, but one of the things it has done has woken us up. It woke us up to the lie of image. You know, the images in the media work on such a subtle level, I'm almost not aware of making a choice to buy in. Cutting it out of our lives has been a blessing. But it's like the blinders have been lifted on everything else. It seems that I look at everything now and think, "What is this? Why am I choosing it?"
What builds actual power and stability in a family, in a person? The ability to be self-sustaining, right? The ability to feed and shelter oneself without being dependent on someone else, right? What does our culture do? It promotes a climate in which everyone is encouraged to mortgage their futures. In essence, it keeps us all slaves. Then they raise your rates, shorten the pay period, ruin your credit, so you can't get more purchasing power. They own you.
Part of the reason for all the foreclosures, I think, is that everyone was encouraged to borrow money to pay off credit card debt using their house as collateral. Bad idea, tying up the house.
Here's what I think we should do. I think we should all rebel. Quietly.
I think we should form credit clubs, and pay off each other's debt. We could work out some arrangement. Pay it, never get more. Put these people whose customer service centers aren't even in the United States (so we can't think, well, at least it's keeping us employed) out of business. Let these pikers who've so carelessly squandered our money and seduced the poor into debt fend for themselves. Then I think we should concentrate on making sure everyone has a clean roof over their head and the food pyramid to eat.
Ok. That's my 1/2 hour. I'm going to go sit now.
I'm thinking of getting a wood stove.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Learners Permit
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...
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 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.
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