I have a short list, and you do too. The people you can call and tell funny and horrifying and completely absurd things to who will make something that was just really great in your head become transcendent because now its both in your head and out in the world. The people who will equally enjoy the nuttiness you're telling them, as much as you're enjoying the nuttiness. The people you can hang up with and either a. never speak of it again or b. sit on it for a really long time and then bring it up in a very funny way at an inappropriate time or place. The people you talk to in your head when you're not together.
I can call my brother with lots of very obscure and wistful impersonations of foreign men with indiscriminate accents consumed with longing. I can call my friend D. with any observations regarding female anatomy, mine and others. She knows and teaches me all the good nicknames. Cookie! I never would have thought of cookie, and its perfect. I can call C. and egg her into a tirade and then just relax and enjoy the phenomenal show of wit and sarcasm (hers, not mine) that ensues. I can call D. and report just about anything in a Bill Cosby voice and be understood: why it needed to be said, and why it needed to be said in a Bill Cosby voice. Just about 20 years of the Bill Cosby calls in the Bill Cosby voice. Honestly, it makes me know the world is good and my life, if it ends today, has been blessed, lucky, full, and plenty. Plenty.
I was thinking all this because I was noticing this evening in the shower that my breasts are having the best day of their life. This day, 5/28/2013, at 10:25pm. They are at a particular kind of fullness due to impending hormonal events that must be interacting with a certain kind of moon or tide because they are glorious. Glorious! Perfect melons, peaches, every fruity cliche. I want to take a picture of them, and I want to go downtown and take them out because they are so magnificent this evening that they should be seen in the moonlight, reverently touched, gently kissed with the most feathering of kisses. Is it just me? Is this happening all over the city, like werewolves, only better? For one night, can we all take our fantastic breasts out of their hiding places and congregate out in the dewy air and stay up all night and just love them?
Its too late to call D., who is my short list person for this kind of thing (as teenagers, we did a certain amount of naked dancing in the rain). This could all be over by the morning, but I don't want to forget it. I have never had these breasts before, and I may never have them again. Its a beautiful visitation and a lovely reminder of just how wonderful the human body is, particularly the female form, and mine included. I'll write it here, to remember, to come back and visit. To maybe remember to remember and call D. about it tomorrow. Or maybe not.
The short list, I think, brings out your best voice. Your honest voice that says the truth. Candid, honest, authentic. How and who you really are. The gift is not in the personal liberation or the freedom of that, but rather something more modest: the simple opportunity to enjoy yourself. A funny side effect of AA, I think, is things just like this. When in my life have I ever had the pleasure of consistently hearing so many different people say so many different kinds of things, but all from the heart, honest and true? You can wait months to find your next great book that has a voice you want to keep talking after the last page. Go to an AA meeting and you're going to hear someone saying something at some point that you just don't want to stop.
You can also not go to AA, ever. I went to the playground today, and had a conversation with my friend K., who has very large and lovely breasts. Its a defining feature for her, and she mentions things about them in conversations the way you would about how your kids are doing in sports and in school. They have a presence and a life a little bit of their own. She was meant to bake brownies this afternoon, and made mention of the fact that for the past 25 years she has softened every stick of butter she's ever used to bake something by sticking it in her cleavage. And that brought me joy, to know that, for her to say it, and to share it with me. And it inspires me to follow her example and share my own breast joy tonight, out loud, without edit or particular caution, in my own honest voice. Just this night, while its here. It may be long gone by the morning.
I let K. know that I have had to settle for putting sticks of butter and occasionally baby bottles in my armpit. Nothing to be advertised to the recipients of my baked goods or mothering.
A good day is a chance to experience something, narrated in my own voice in my own head, that is worthy of expression to any one of the individuals on my short list. A good day is a day with even one thing that was really, really funny. Or joyful. Or absurd. Or simply honest. A good day is when I notice something great, and get to tell the story to someone who understands it and likes it too. Or even when I just get to tell the story at all.
Like about my breasts. My one-day-only, rounded, luminous and lovely breasts. Because saying that one, out loud, or just here, might also be one-day-only. Its honest and absurd and funny and true and on this day that works great for me.
Today was a good day.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
Trash
I have tissue packed up my nose here. My shoulder hurts like a bastard from the shoulder freeze, and I imagine the headache and sore throat and joint pain is from the lupus. THE LUPUS. That's how I think of it in my head.
So I rested my head against the stall like everyone does when they're sick in public places. And then I thought it was so miserable that I better get a picture of it. And then I thought, that looks really stupid, me taking a picture of me with my cell phone being pathetic. And then I cracked up and said to my self (out loud, its always out loud, for me): Bitch! Get your candy-ass back out there!
And I did and it was a great rest of the day. And now I love this photo. Melodrama! I do it really, really well. I am talented. Here's my bloody tissue that I saved from yesterday as proof. Just in case the doctor wants to see it when they let me know its THE LEUKEMIA and not THE LUPUS as I'd thought from the diagnostic criteria on Google.
Bitch! Get up off the floor! Break's over. We have work to do!
Off Night (from 12/2008)
No bad poetry tonight. Two of my patients died yesterday and I'm just sitting with it tonight. I remember all my patients and some always stay with me more than others. These two were something more though I don't know why just yet.
They were both 51. I "met" T. during staff meeting two Mondays ago. The nurses started passing around photos of T.'s wounds - eight stage 4 wounds, the worst any of them had seen. They loved it, literally. A lot of the nurses will say they just love wounds. And they do. Most of the chaplains and social workers declined to look at the pictures as they went around, but T. was assigned to be my patient, so I thought I should look. This was a major piece of his reality, so if its my job to understand and support him in his reality, I thought I ought to look. So I did. And it was bad. I had to concentrate on nothing but suppressing the gag reflex for a few minutes. Slough, tunneling, green drainage. Right to the bone. His body, literally, rotting off of him.
I saw him three times on three different days and he was in excruciating pain despite the huge doses of morphine Deb, the nurse, put him on. He had a tremendous quiet dignity. Each wound was colonized with MRSA and VRE and so no touching allowed. He wanted to see the Atlantic again. I had it lined up to take him by ambulance to Plum Island with Deb and Heather, his hospice aide. I got permission to drive the ambulance onto the beach from the wildlife refuge rangers and we were going to back on, open the bay doors, crank him up, and - Atlantic. I knew it wouldn't happen because he was going to die too fast but I made the calls anyway and got the funding. It just felt right to do that. In the end I sat beside him and talked him there instead. He was just a truly lovely guy and he had really nice friends and family who all came to see him. I last saw him Monday as he was dying and I touched his hands and kept my hand on his forehead for a long time. Totally not supposed to do that, a little stupid to do that and likely got the second viral pneumonia because of it but I had to. It was the right thing, for me at least, to do.
J. was also 51. Mother in this unbelievably gracious Lebanese family in this tiny apartment in the junky part of Methuen. Breast cancer for 13 years that when we came along had metastasized to her brain and liver and probably lots of other places too. She had this very calm, peaceful and luminous quality to her. And an extremely cute little funny giggle. She loved us and we loved her. The Monday before Thanksgiving the family made us a Lebanese feast - the chaplain Jim, Beth the nurse, and me. Their kitchen table moved into the living room and overflowing with homemade everything - beautiful, fresh vegetables, grains, pomegranate seeds, avacado, beets, tabouleh, grapes, pears, apples. I had to tell them the whole thing about not giving us gifts and just leting us come and be of service - the whole office policy speech, but we ate with them and said we would never tell if they didn't just don't do it again because how can you refuse an offering of self like that? And they understood, though G., the husband, took to kissing me on top of the head and telling me and Beth that we were his daughters and that he was going to buy us homes in Lebanon. That afternoon was the last time J. got out of bed. Jim led a prayer and we all held hands in a circle and I'm not a praying sort but I will say it was one of those moments and in my memory we all did sort of float up in a circle for a little while, it was so light, and joyful. And J. died yesterday morning and Beth was there and she said the sunlight was streaming in the windows. She called me right afterwards at 8:30 in the morning even though it was my day off. And sunlight was streaming in my windows too. So that was good.
They were both 51. I "met" T. during staff meeting two Mondays ago. The nurses started passing around photos of T.'s wounds - eight stage 4 wounds, the worst any of them had seen. They loved it, literally. A lot of the nurses will say they just love wounds. And they do. Most of the chaplains and social workers declined to look at the pictures as they went around, but T. was assigned to be my patient, so I thought I should look. This was a major piece of his reality, so if its my job to understand and support him in his reality, I thought I ought to look. So I did. And it was bad. I had to concentrate on nothing but suppressing the gag reflex for a few minutes. Slough, tunneling, green drainage. Right to the bone. His body, literally, rotting off of him.
I saw him three times on three different days and he was in excruciating pain despite the huge doses of morphine Deb, the nurse, put him on. He had a tremendous quiet dignity. Each wound was colonized with MRSA and VRE and so no touching allowed. He wanted to see the Atlantic again. I had it lined up to take him by ambulance to Plum Island with Deb and Heather, his hospice aide. I got permission to drive the ambulance onto the beach from the wildlife refuge rangers and we were going to back on, open the bay doors, crank him up, and - Atlantic. I knew it wouldn't happen because he was going to die too fast but I made the calls anyway and got the funding. It just felt right to do that. In the end I sat beside him and talked him there instead. He was just a truly lovely guy and he had really nice friends and family who all came to see him. I last saw him Monday as he was dying and I touched his hands and kept my hand on his forehead for a long time. Totally not supposed to do that, a little stupid to do that and likely got the second viral pneumonia because of it but I had to. It was the right thing, for me at least, to do.
J. was also 51. Mother in this unbelievably gracious Lebanese family in this tiny apartment in the junky part of Methuen. Breast cancer for 13 years that when we came along had metastasized to her brain and liver and probably lots of other places too. She had this very calm, peaceful and luminous quality to her. And an extremely cute little funny giggle. She loved us and we loved her. The Monday before Thanksgiving the family made us a Lebanese feast - the chaplain Jim, Beth the nurse, and me. Their kitchen table moved into the living room and overflowing with homemade everything - beautiful, fresh vegetables, grains, pomegranate seeds, avacado, beets, tabouleh, grapes, pears, apples. I had to tell them the whole thing about not giving us gifts and just leting us come and be of service - the whole office policy speech, but we ate with them and said we would never tell if they didn't just don't do it again because how can you refuse an offering of self like that? And they understood, though G., the husband, took to kissing me on top of the head and telling me and Beth that we were his daughters and that he was going to buy us homes in Lebanon. That afternoon was the last time J. got out of bed. Jim led a prayer and we all held hands in a circle and I'm not a praying sort but I will say it was one of those moments and in my memory we all did sort of float up in a circle for a little while, it was so light, and joyful. And J. died yesterday morning and Beth was there and she said the sunlight was streaming in the windows. She called me right afterwards at 8:30 in the morning even though it was my day off. And sunlight was streaming in my windows too. So that was good.
Assorted Candies (from 12/2008)
For 10 hours of hospice, today was a sexy day. This is why.
1.
One of the nurses I work with just stood up from her cube out of nowhere today and smiled this very radiant smile at M., the other social worker, and me, and you could immediately see that she was just completely all there and in herself at that moment, just totally present, and she said
I just want to tell you that I love you guys. I really do. You're always there for me and you're always so awesome and I'm having endogenous opioids today and its a fresh start and a new day and I love you both.
And she really meant it. And I looked at M., who is not demonstrative in this sort of a way, and I considered my own feelings, because though while generally in favor of loving and positive feelings and the free expression of these kinds of things I also have boundaries and am a little bit sensible too. But I tell you, M. and I got up and it was like we were all just a little more there, instantly, like color saturated or something, and we told her we loved her too and we hugged all together and it was electric and gorgeous and totally true. And that was at about 8:45am this morning, half an hour into my work day.
2.
Also to do with R., this particular nurse, was a patient we both saw over at my favorite nursing home today. This lady is really pretty demented but is content in her reality and mostly looks off into space except when you directly address her, in which case she looks at you with this big smile with her two remaining teeth, and says a few related words, and then checks right back out into pleasantland. And its great that she is in pleasantland because she mostly doesn't eat anymore and doesn't get up anymore and has a really, really awful wound that she's on a lot of medication to control the pain from.
And so today R. had to change her dressing on that wound and I was down the hall finishing up and when I came by I couldn't hear the words R. was saying but I caught her tone and I thought, uh-oh and so I went in. R. was clearly shaken up and who wouldn't be because this poor lady was just hanging on the bedrail with all her might and sobbing the saddest sob I have ever heard. And I know this lady went to Hawaii once and so I got down on my knees and I just started recalling in as much detail as I could every single thing, smell, taste, feel anything at all of Hawaii and using all the Hawaiian names I could think of too, talking about plumeria and hibiscus and hummingbirds so tiny disappearing into the hibiscus and on and on and she stopped crying and R. stopped looking shaken up and suddenly we were all, I think, in Hawaii together, and it was so lush and verdant and sensual and just sexy and I thought, and I know we all felt it, how did we all just get to sexy after a thing like that? And it was an amazing gorgeous electric moment, and we all looked in each other's eyes and it was all there and true and part of me still can't believe it except I know it because even now close to 12 hours later I can feel it inside.
3.
There's this Italian aide at this same favorite nursing home and I don't even know his name but he's about my age and has a long ponytail and he sings in Italian all the time and though he isn't empirically speaking half-bad looking that is not the thing about him. The thing about him is that he is so incredibly genuinely kind. I watch him with the various patients while I'm doing my charting at the nurses' station and I see the way he really, truly, loves all these old and not so good smelling and sometimes very unhappy patients. He is so tender and gentle and respectful and lovely with them and he smiles at them and sings to them and sometimes he just holds them and lets them be however they are and I really see him and I get embarrassed because I think he catches me watching sometimes and I don't want him to think its a flirty thing because it isn't, its just so beautiful, and I catch him watching me sometimes with my patients because, honestly, I really do love my patients too.
And so its like we're two lighthouses crossing beams sometimes although we never speak or really acknowledge each other, except for one time a couple of weeks ago. I was leaning against the wall waiting for the elevator after a very long and sad day with a few deaths, two while I was in the room, and one that was really awful with a lot of pain and moaning and suffering that we never were able to make better. And I'm sure my hair was up in a mess the way it usually is after a day like that, and I'm sure I looked like leftovers, the way I usually do after a day like that. And what he did is walk up to me and briefly hold my shoulders and looked at me and then kissed me very gently on the cheek and then walked away and I was stunned and blushed I'm sure. But then by the time the elevator came I got it and stopped blushing and just smiled and we never spoke of it or even to each other instantly back to our usual silent mutual appreciation society at every subsequent visit. And I saw him today wiping the drool from someone and he saw me doing the Hawaii thing and afterwards as I was waiting for the elevator he just smiled at me as he does and I smiled back as I do and it was quiet and gorgeous and true and lovely.
4.
This evening I was driving just at dusk to go admit a new home patient a few towns over. The air was just unbelievable. Sixtyish, a little humid, a little breezy, a warm breeze, not a chilly one. In December. It did something to me. All I could think of was, this is sexy, sexy air. And it was sexy. I could not think of anything but the urge to go skinnydipping in the Merrimack as I drove along its banks, and I thought, I should really be thinking about this patient, and going over what not to forget to check into (funeral plans, DNR in place, don't smoke ciggies next to the O2 tank) and what I wanted to do was be naked in the air and then naked in the water. Except that it would be frigid and so I didn't do that. But I still kind of wish I'd found a good thick stand of trees and not been running 15 minutes late because I might have taken care of the first bit. I am still thinking about it tonight and I am wishing I could figure out where this particular air mass is from because I don't think its from generally just south of here. I think this is a magical air mass from some place kind of unusual and special and a little sexy, and someone out there has the technology to track it and know it and I wish they would put it on the news because I bet I'm not the only one who noticed it today. I bet Prince was on vacation somewhere, and slept in this air mass, and then it travelled on up to Haverhill, MA and got tangled up with me and that is probably the case because Prince is the kind of guy who can pull off stuff like that. But that's the truth. There was something in the air today and it was lovely and sexy all day today and I tell you, it was really pretty pleasant and enjoyable and I'm pretty grateful to have had a sensual sexy day in the middle of December on a Monday at work in a bunch of nursing homes. Thank you Prince, wherever you are.
1.
One of the nurses I work with just stood up from her cube out of nowhere today and smiled this very radiant smile at M., the other social worker, and me, and you could immediately see that she was just completely all there and in herself at that moment, just totally present, and she said
I just want to tell you that I love you guys. I really do. You're always there for me and you're always so awesome and I'm having endogenous opioids today and its a fresh start and a new day and I love you both.
And she really meant it. And I looked at M., who is not demonstrative in this sort of a way, and I considered my own feelings, because though while generally in favor of loving and positive feelings and the free expression of these kinds of things I also have boundaries and am a little bit sensible too. But I tell you, M. and I got up and it was like we were all just a little more there, instantly, like color saturated or something, and we told her we loved her too and we hugged all together and it was electric and gorgeous and totally true. And that was at about 8:45am this morning, half an hour into my work day.
2.
Also to do with R., this particular nurse, was a patient we both saw over at my favorite nursing home today. This lady is really pretty demented but is content in her reality and mostly looks off into space except when you directly address her, in which case she looks at you with this big smile with her two remaining teeth, and says a few related words, and then checks right back out into pleasantland. And its great that she is in pleasantland because she mostly doesn't eat anymore and doesn't get up anymore and has a really, really awful wound that she's on a lot of medication to control the pain from.
And so today R. had to change her dressing on that wound and I was down the hall finishing up and when I came by I couldn't hear the words R. was saying but I caught her tone and I thought, uh-oh and so I went in. R. was clearly shaken up and who wouldn't be because this poor lady was just hanging on the bedrail with all her might and sobbing the saddest sob I have ever heard. And I know this lady went to Hawaii once and so I got down on my knees and I just started recalling in as much detail as I could every single thing, smell, taste, feel anything at all of Hawaii and using all the Hawaiian names I could think of too, talking about plumeria and hibiscus and hummingbirds so tiny disappearing into the hibiscus and on and on and she stopped crying and R. stopped looking shaken up and suddenly we were all, I think, in Hawaii together, and it was so lush and verdant and sensual and just sexy and I thought, and I know we all felt it, how did we all just get to sexy after a thing like that? And it was an amazing gorgeous electric moment, and we all looked in each other's eyes and it was all there and true and part of me still can't believe it except I know it because even now close to 12 hours later I can feel it inside.
3.
There's this Italian aide at this same favorite nursing home and I don't even know his name but he's about my age and has a long ponytail and he sings in Italian all the time and though he isn't empirically speaking half-bad looking that is not the thing about him. The thing about him is that he is so incredibly genuinely kind. I watch him with the various patients while I'm doing my charting at the nurses' station and I see the way he really, truly, loves all these old and not so good smelling and sometimes very unhappy patients. He is so tender and gentle and respectful and lovely with them and he smiles at them and sings to them and sometimes he just holds them and lets them be however they are and I really see him and I get embarrassed because I think he catches me watching sometimes and I don't want him to think its a flirty thing because it isn't, its just so beautiful, and I catch him watching me sometimes with my patients because, honestly, I really do love my patients too.
And so its like we're two lighthouses crossing beams sometimes although we never speak or really acknowledge each other, except for one time a couple of weeks ago. I was leaning against the wall waiting for the elevator after a very long and sad day with a few deaths, two while I was in the room, and one that was really awful with a lot of pain and moaning and suffering that we never were able to make better. And I'm sure my hair was up in a mess the way it usually is after a day like that, and I'm sure I looked like leftovers, the way I usually do after a day like that. And what he did is walk up to me and briefly hold my shoulders and looked at me and then kissed me very gently on the cheek and then walked away and I was stunned and blushed I'm sure. But then by the time the elevator came I got it and stopped blushing and just smiled and we never spoke of it or even to each other instantly back to our usual silent mutual appreciation society at every subsequent visit. And I saw him today wiping the drool from someone and he saw me doing the Hawaii thing and afterwards as I was waiting for the elevator he just smiled at me as he does and I smiled back as I do and it was quiet and gorgeous and true and lovely.
4.
This evening I was driving just at dusk to go admit a new home patient a few towns over. The air was just unbelievable. Sixtyish, a little humid, a little breezy, a warm breeze, not a chilly one. In December. It did something to me. All I could think of was, this is sexy, sexy air. And it was sexy. I could not think of anything but the urge to go skinnydipping in the Merrimack as I drove along its banks, and I thought, I should really be thinking about this patient, and going over what not to forget to check into (funeral plans, DNR in place, don't smoke ciggies next to the O2 tank) and what I wanted to do was be naked in the air and then naked in the water. Except that it would be frigid and so I didn't do that. But I still kind of wish I'd found a good thick stand of trees and not been running 15 minutes late because I might have taken care of the first bit. I am still thinking about it tonight and I am wishing I could figure out where this particular air mass is from because I don't think its from generally just south of here. I think this is a magical air mass from some place kind of unusual and special and a little sexy, and someone out there has the technology to track it and know it and I wish they would put it on the news because I bet I'm not the only one who noticed it today. I bet Prince was on vacation somewhere, and slept in this air mass, and then it travelled on up to Haverhill, MA and got tangled up with me and that is probably the case because Prince is the kind of guy who can pull off stuff like that. But that's the truth. There was something in the air today and it was lovely and sexy all day today and I tell you, it was really pretty pleasant and enjoyable and I'm pretty grateful to have had a sensual sexy day in the middle of December on a Monday at work in a bunch of nursing homes. Thank you Prince, wherever you are.
Untitled
the sky is slanted
the sky is soft
I made a body of work
I hunch
I hunker
I squat down over it
I pack things back in
dirty
dry and tacky
was it packed with mud
what if it becomes infectious, purulent
what becomes of it
do I miss you
do I miss the way you make me feel
is it you
or is it me
I slice
nice and clean
slivers
I slice through
debride and flush
pack it
wrap it
and mail it to you.
the sky is soft
I made a body of work
I hunch
I hunker
I squat down over it
I pack things back in
dirty
dry and tacky
was it packed with mud
what if it becomes infectious, purulent
what becomes of it
do I miss you
do I miss the way you make me feel
is it you
or is it me
I slice
nice and clean
slivers
I slice through
debride and flush
pack it
wrap it
and mail it to you.
Hemingway, Fitzgerald and I: Drinking and Writing
So sick, so sick.
I can barely see. I can barely
hear what you say. you keep saying. You
keep not saying.
good bye. why not. why not. what's 40 years or
one in billions. what's the point. what was
the point. what was
so fucking important. I ask you that.
I ask you that and you will
never, ever, answer. He was
sobbing at the foot of the stairs. Did you
ever see him sobbing before? No
you did not. Drive around the block,
drive around, drive around shorter or longer or
not at all not as you'd admit
as you meant to. What we miss. Oh I miss you though
we never meet. But we're here all the time. Listen.
We're here all the time.
We're not alone. You.
You are not alone.
I love you. You know I do. I love you
whatever. Fuck you too.
These are minutes. These are
all we have. Be sure. Be so sure,
Here they go. Here I go. I'm not sick.
I'm well. Its going well. Thank fucking god.
Thank god. Its god you know, in the air, what it is
its god
its God.
I can barely see. I can barely
hear what you say. you keep saying. You
keep not saying.
good bye. why not. why not. what's 40 years or
one in billions. what's the point. what was
the point. what was
so fucking important. I ask you that.
I ask you that and you will
never, ever, answer. He was
sobbing at the foot of the stairs. Did you
ever see him sobbing before? No
you did not. Drive around the block,
drive around, drive around shorter or longer or
not at all not as you'd admit
as you meant to. What we miss. Oh I miss you though
we never meet. But we're here all the time. Listen.
We're here all the time.
We're not alone. You.
You are not alone.
I love you. You know I do. I love you
whatever. Fuck you too.
These are minutes. These are
all we have. Be sure. Be so sure,
Here they go. Here I go. I'm not sick.
I'm well. Its going well. Thank fucking god.
Thank god. Its god you know, in the air, what it is
its god
its God.
Temperance
I'm not that nice, are you?
I'm the angry smoking girl. I'm the
smoking girl
with the orange hair
I burn it all down
and leave it all smoking
an ashy pile of cinders
I'll ash on your rug. I'll ash on your floor. I'll
smoke in your bed I'll need
ashtrays to ash in. I bellow
smoke, like a dragon, an angry one. I'm the
smoking girl of Racine Street
I will be in your bed
when you come home
angry and smoking
late at night
a glowing tip, in the darkness
smoldering
waiting
to immolate
working
to go from Code Orange
to Code Red
doused
in accelerant
reeking
and stinking
going up in flames
going up in smoke
and
fire fire
FIRE.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Closing Bell
One thing I do like about being an alcoholic is the new finish line for the day, this day, or any other day. If I didn't have a drink today, then job well done. No other accounting really matters. You can relieve yourself posthaste of any worry, doubt, anxiety, or fear related to what you did, or didn't, produce. You can relieve yourself! You don't even need anyone else to say it.
I did not do so much today. I went to a meeting this morning and I listened attentively and I gave a message of nonverbal love, affection, pride and gratitude to K., who both spoke at the meeting and received his one-year medallion. I gave him a hug after just to say congratulations, and suddenly we were holding on to each other for dear life. What was that unexpectedly intense and long embrace, congratulatory hug turned into wordless communique of hold on, thank you, I love you, I love you?
When you're in anyone's arms for long enough, shit is going to surface, I suppose. It turns out K. is my AA buddy but he is also a soldier, a simple stupid grunt, like me, and we are fighting to save our lives and our souls in this war. Maybe that was it. He told a little of his war story today, and I had to grab onto him as veterans grab onto each other. I was there too. I saw that shit too. I almost died too. I can never thank you enough for what you did for me. I love you. I love you. And at the end of today, I can look back on it, and I understand that those words are about me and about K. and about both of us together. And they're true. So perhaps I should have known that I was going to bury my face in his chest, and he was not going to let go of my back and neck and shoulders for awhile, and we were both going to have eyes swimming with tears at the end of it.
Christ. Usually we're talking about if the cookies are any good that day and where the missing people are: treatment, relapse, or jail.
It was a positive thing, but for whatever reason it also sapped me of everything and at 9:07 am this morning I was pretty much done for the day. A lot of West Wing reruns and website visiting followed. In my former life, I might have thought this was unproductive.
But if you drink the AA Koolaid, which I suppose I have (really, you're either in or you're out, and I am all done testing the out part) you can arrive quickly at this: If I didn't have a drink today, then good job, and that's job enough. End of story. You've had your hearty meal of churned butter and rough bread and farm stew after rinsing your dusty neck and face at the pump, and now you can sink into clean sheets and downy pillows in well-earned exhaustion, and sleep the beautiful sleep of the totally spent.
AA says: One day at a time. Just for today. Keep it in the day. All any of us has is today. A truism and map for living that is both scientifically correct and spiritually nontheistic but, nevertheless, uplifting in a Buddhist simple-essential-truth kind of way.
Enough then. I stayed away from a drink today. I did not put a drink or a substance in my body today. I have one day sober. I have a great number of days before this that I was sober, but those are all the past now. They are gone. I have a great number of days to come that I will be sober, but they do not yet exist. They are a fiction. There is only today.
So, K. and his red T-shirt. Not too much else to tell. A low-ball day. But an honest and true one. An awake one. A sober one, for a recovering alcoholic.
One magnificent, fine fucking day indeed! Beautiful. I love it. I love AA. I love K. I love that its enough, and that I get to have relief, and peace, and go to bed happy, full, alive, and absolutely spent.
I hope I have a deep and peaceful sleep, with dreams. I wish that for all of us.
I did not do so much today. I went to a meeting this morning and I listened attentively and I gave a message of nonverbal love, affection, pride and gratitude to K., who both spoke at the meeting and received his one-year medallion. I gave him a hug after just to say congratulations, and suddenly we were holding on to each other for dear life. What was that unexpectedly intense and long embrace, congratulatory hug turned into wordless communique of hold on, thank you, I love you, I love you?
When you're in anyone's arms for long enough, shit is going to surface, I suppose. It turns out K. is my AA buddy but he is also a soldier, a simple stupid grunt, like me, and we are fighting to save our lives and our souls in this war. Maybe that was it. He told a little of his war story today, and I had to grab onto him as veterans grab onto each other. I was there too. I saw that shit too. I almost died too. I can never thank you enough for what you did for me. I love you. I love you. And at the end of today, I can look back on it, and I understand that those words are about me and about K. and about both of us together. And they're true. So perhaps I should have known that I was going to bury my face in his chest, and he was not going to let go of my back and neck and shoulders for awhile, and we were both going to have eyes swimming with tears at the end of it.
Christ. Usually we're talking about if the cookies are any good that day and where the missing people are: treatment, relapse, or jail.
It was a positive thing, but for whatever reason it also sapped me of everything and at 9:07 am this morning I was pretty much done for the day. A lot of West Wing reruns and website visiting followed. In my former life, I might have thought this was unproductive.
But if you drink the AA Koolaid, which I suppose I have (really, you're either in or you're out, and I am all done testing the out part) you can arrive quickly at this: If I didn't have a drink today, then good job, and that's job enough. End of story. You've had your hearty meal of churned butter and rough bread and farm stew after rinsing your dusty neck and face at the pump, and now you can sink into clean sheets and downy pillows in well-earned exhaustion, and sleep the beautiful sleep of the totally spent.
AA says: One day at a time. Just for today. Keep it in the day. All any of us has is today. A truism and map for living that is both scientifically correct and spiritually nontheistic but, nevertheless, uplifting in a Buddhist simple-essential-truth kind of way.
Enough then. I stayed away from a drink today. I did not put a drink or a substance in my body today. I have one day sober. I have a great number of days before this that I was sober, but those are all the past now. They are gone. I have a great number of days to come that I will be sober, but they do not yet exist. They are a fiction. There is only today.
So, K. and his red T-shirt. Not too much else to tell. A low-ball day. But an honest and true one. An awake one. A sober one, for a recovering alcoholic.
One magnificent, fine fucking day indeed! Beautiful. I love it. I love AA. I love K. I love that its enough, and that I get to have relief, and peace, and go to bed happy, full, alive, and absolutely spent.
I hope I have a deep and peaceful sleep, with dreams. I wish that for all of us.
Flash 5.24.13
Its a cheap shot, calling her a rube. So what if she is 35 pounds overweight, and that weight clusters around her thighs, upper arms, and belly? So what if her clothes are too tight and too short for someone her age, or anyone. So what if they're not flattering.
She has more to worry about, more important things to think about, than if she is being flattering or not. She is standing up there in tiny shorts and squeezey tee and she is reading to us about how it works and reminding all of us that we don't have to drink no matter what. We can keep it simple, let go and let god, easy does it, as the little blue and yellow fringed banners around her remind us.
We have didactic teaching and visual aids here. We are being given everything we need. It is unimportant that she is not dressed for this cooler weather, and with some effort, you can stop looking at and thinking about how her legs show little circuits of red vascular loops over her white white skin, how her circulation is unhappy with the cold. You can stop seeing that simply by closing your eyes, and listening instead. You can make a choice to listen only to her voice and try to understand what she is saying.
You'll run into her later in the grocery store with her friend that she is always with who isn't anywhere near as sober. Are they friends because they are or does she just need that friend in a symbiotic way because she needs the rides and she still has a year to go before she can get her license back?
That's exactly what I'm talking about. Stop looking, stop thinking those thoughts with your monkey brain. So what if she's going to make a lasagna tonight? All you need to know is what she told you. You can practice these principles in all your affairs. You really can.
She is the proof.
30:5
For his anger endureth but a moment, in his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but
joy cometh in the morning.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Friday, May 17, 2013
Where to Begin
This is me at work. This is L., my patient, who with his 5 brothers went to World War II. I listened to L. tell me about the war for about, maybe, 50 hours total over the course of 18 months or so. He has a purple heart. His wife was my patient too and I sat in between them for a week holding both of their hands. They were side by side in twin beds, her dying, him sick and crying and scared. And she died, and he lived. He remained my patient.
That's my table that was my great-grandmother's. That's my mug that makes me think its funny everytime I use it and gives me an amused feeling that I like. That's the pen I used when I signed my resignation letter and faxed it in and therefore could no longer go visit L. and, you know, listen and be with, as I formerly did.
That's me giving him a certificate of recognition for his military service as well as one for his late wife, who was also a veteran.
I could write a book about me, for the top photo and what's on my table, and I could make it all true and it would be a little bit shocking and also a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, which Dave Eggers got to before me. Some people hog all the good names.
I could write a book about L., and me, or just L., and I could even write a book about just the few political and personal and beautiful and terrible things flying around the room in just that photo about that moment, me, L., a company, death, medicine, politics, war, ethics, love, terror, a certificate on a piece of paper. It would be a little bit shocking and also staggering, heartbreaking, and genius in an obvious kind of way. I would like to write that book but I'm not sure if I can do it and make it true. If I couldn't tell it true, I don't want to tell it at all. The closest I can come for now is just to allude to it. But that is a beginning.
I notice now how he's holding on to my wrist. That was really the point, the truth, of the whole thing, although I don't know if anyone other than L. and I and the photographer, his daughter, ever got that part straight.
I thought about these photos of photos about 10 minutes ago while I was taking a pee in my house, and what it felt like in both of those photos. What lead to it and where it is now. Both of those photos go together. While I was peeing they just came to me and I thought, The whole team could not bear the idea of death and in fact were traumatized and terrified and though end-of-life professionals with training, experience, expertise, regulation and oversight, brought it to subtly and constantly bear upon me to stop it. Just stop it, somehow.
And that was hard. But I withstood it.
But it did wear on me too.
I can understand it better now. I forgive it.
I'm glad I never bought into that. Trying to stop it. That would make a person go nuts.
I'm so glad for that photo of me and L. and that he is holding my wrist and that I know I am feeling happy to be with him in that moment. I remember that moment perfectly even though this past Sunday and most of Monday are an absolute and total mystery that I can only reconstruct by scrolling through texts and messages on my phone.
I was happy then. I was happy. I loved L. and I still love him and that's all that was going on, in truth, in that photo. There are all kinds of clues and inferences and I'm wearing a lanyard and a badge and that's not the point.
We were happy. We were touching each other. It was good to both of us to do that. It was mutual. It was understood. It was safe and loving and kind and not terrifying and death was in the room. We were happy.
I was happy today and while I was peeing and I'm really happy right now.
That's the truth. If I had that photo with me right now, in bed, I would press it to my chest, my heart, and turn off the light, and keep pressing it against me, and fall asleep smiling in the dark, feeling happy, and full of love, love, love.
I hope I can sleep now.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
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