Salami, White Bread and The Bargain

Like most doctor's offices, this one is freezing.  The Food Channel is on in the waiting area and if it weren't so cold, I'm pretty sure I'd be napping within minutes.  The nurse calls me into an exam room and I go gratefully, hoping for some warmth.  I'm weighed and measured, have my blood pressure taken, and asked an endless list of medical history questions.  I pass the EKG with flying colors and get odd looks when I tell them I take no medications - None at all? the physician's assistance repeats twice with more than a hint of doubt - None at all, I tell her firmly.  No medications, no aches and pains, no alcohol, no recent surgeries or illnesses.  Well,
she tells me with a shake of her pretty head, A pack a day smoker and you're the healthiest unhealthy person I know.

The doctor - young and bespectacled and awesomely pleasant - reads the history, looks at the EKG, listens to my heart, examines my feet and feels my arms and throat before passing a calm and measured judgement that he doubts it was cardiac related.

More'n likely, he says with a slight smile, An esophageal spasm from salami and white bread getting lodged in your throat, no signs whatever of cardiac involvement. But........

The all powerful, attention grabbing, medical BUT.  I brace myself for a lecture on diet, exercise and smoking. Instead he begins a kind of one sided negotiation - I can cut my risk in half with an aspirin each morning, 30 minutes of walking every day and resuming my cholesterol meds.  Am I willing to try?  And he is so earnest, so kind, so gently persuasive and damnably reasonable that - without being quite aware I've been cardiologically conned, even if for my own good - I agree to it all.  And he smiles.

On my way out, both the nurse and physician's assistant stop to wish me well and I have a suspicion that both are being genuine.  Can it actually be that this practice cares more about patients than money?  It's a wayward thought but one that stays with me despite my cynicism and experience with the medical profession.

And I smile.

Just Plain Sad

The park is quiet for a perfect early fall Sunday afternoon.  A young couple is playing frisbee with a retriever, a family is spread out under the trees with the makings of a picnic, and a handful of kids are playing by the swings.  The light is pastel and golden, weaving through the trees in uneven streaks and making shadows on the walkways.  I feel that old familiar sadness that sets in every year about this time - it's free floating with no particular source or reason to be - and it settles around me with a casual, comfortable sense of recognition, greeting me like an old friend.  The part of me that's so susceptible to imagery and nostalgia and depression welcomes it while the practical side wants to chase it off.

It's just light and shadows, I tell myself, there's no mystery or magic here, no premonitions and no reason to feel sad, just one season following another and all that 60's crap.  Yet it happens every autumn and I can't shake it.  It won't be completely dispelled until the cold weather sets in, usually about Halloween and it's an odd feeling, more of a mood than anything else, a sense of ending and goodbye and just plain sad.  I feel as if I should be mourning something but there's nothing to mourn - these pretty fall days are just like any other except more pleasant - it's me that changes.

So I keep walking, trying to let my attention be diverted by the small brown dog, trotting easily and confidently beside me, and the little dachshund, straining at the leash and wonderstruck at everything.  Walking is new to him and the park is a marvelous adventure in sights and sounds and smells.  When a child approaches, he backs away, torn between wanting to make a new friend and his shyness, but the small brown dog is joyful at the prospect of a strange face and bounds happily toward the little girl.  

Mama! Mama! she shouts, Look, it's Butterbean!

Then with the small brown dog doing her frantic happy dance and covering her face with kisses, she sits down on the warm grass and quietly, patiently coaxes the little dachshund to her.  Jesse is unsure and timid with people but this is a little person who clearly means him no harm and after several minutes he approaches her and consents to being lightly petted, then stroked, then he crawls into her lap and kisses her nose gently.  She is delighted.

I feel my mood lifting - dogs and children, how can it not - and the light seems a little less mournful.  When you can't change something, I remind myself, accept it.  Coax it to you and embrace it.  It may be the very thing you need the most.  Or vice versa even.

Shots Fired

Sometimes I really miss the rightness and wrongness of issues, when things were so clearly all black or all white and it was so easy to take and defend one side or the other, when it was as simple as who fired the first shot.

A musician friend of mine and a photography friend of mine are at each other's throats and while their approaches differ - one is vocal, non-forgiving, and brazenly belligerent, the other is wounded, tactful and sadly resigned - both share a stubbornness that just won't quit.  They accuse each other of everything from copyright infringement to non-professionalism to smart-assery and each are not-so-discreetly trying to recruit for their side.  Both have written the other off with a sort of war-like, non aggression pact finality that makes me sad and amused at the same time and what's hard for me is that there's right and wrong on each side and as is so typical when pride and hurt feelings are on the line, the real issues are lost in the fray.  It seems inevitable that what ought to be a private dispute will spill publicly and drag others in, possibly even dividing the close knit community of artists and musicians and doing far more harm than good.  What foolish creatures we can be when we're angry.  What pitiful creatures we can be when we don't get the credit we think we deserve.  And what obstinate creatures we can be when it comes to being right, digging in like mules and refusing to see any point of view but our own.

Being - as I freely admit -  highly susceptible and overly sensitive to having wrongful accusations made against me, I understand the obsession to clear your name and be proven right.  My most difficult moments come as I tell myself, Let it go, it doesn't matter.  But the need for vindication almost always prevails and usually makes me miserable in the process.  So even while I tell both my friends to get over it and make it right between them, my heart is only half in it.  The other half would like to bang both their heads together.

People we've cared about can be our direst enemies if we feel wronged.  And while I hope that this will all be resolved and put to rest, I can't help but think of an old JFK quote ~ Forgive your enemies but never forget their names.

I have a bad feeling that the war is on and there will be no winners.

Several days later, in a flood of hurtful social media posts, it does spill over.  Interestingly enough, it's the wounded one who makes all the noise and gathers all the sympathy, playing the injured party in softly passive tones by writing at length about the illusion of friendship.  She comes off looking used, abused, even worthy and it strikes me that as she makes her case with bitter accusations to anyone who will listen and applaud, that she's doing exactly what she's accusing her former friend of.  The vocal one has not one word to say, not in condemnation and not in her own defense, and I feel my loyalty slipping slightly sideways in her direction if for no other reason than her silence and refusal to play the game.  I have no doubt that others will similarly slide toward one or the other, friendships will be once again tested, harsh words will be exchanged and new circles of friends will be established.  Until the next time, the next disagreement, the next set of bruised feelings, the next misunderstanding.

Looking back, I think I should've banged their heads together when I had the chance. 

Fifty Cent Fish

Knee deep in oilskins and haddock, the crew of the Mary Ellen II pulled into the breakwater just as the sun started its descent over Westport.  They were slinging fish and lustily singing some old, off color sea shanty about the ladies of Spain and didn't notice the tight, little knot of tourists gathered at wharf's end with their Bermuda shorts and cardboard cameras.

Gentlemen! the Daddy tourist shouted and raised his little disposable Kodak, Look this way, if you would!

The fishermen obligingly looked up and gave the city shutterbug their best Sunday smiles.  With his flowered shirt billowing in the breeze and his straw hat threatening to fly off at any moment, he snapped away as if his life depended on on it.  Mama Tourist clapped her hands in delight.  How wonderfully quaint! she called to the boat and the crew exchanged amused smiles.  Oh, and look at the dog! she added as Buttons delicately made his way around and through the catch to a seat in the stern, It's just too Norman Rockwell!

I made my way through this little cache of giggling gawdiness and waved to Gene.

One or two? he called.

Two! I called back, Company's comin'! 

Step back then! he advised and with something like elegance, deftly speared one haddock and then another and tossed them to me where they landed precisely at my feet.  I threw him a fifty cent piece which he caught one handed and slipped into his pocket.  The tourists gawked.

Norman Rockwell or not, ma'm, Gene called to them and smiled to take the edge off, This is a workin' boat! 'Magine you might want to move to safer ground!

They nearly ran me down backing away but I held tight to my fish, walking carefully to the factory entrance where Uncle Shad neatly severed the heads and filleted them in quick, slicing motions then wrapped them in newspaper.  Mama Tourist had paled noticeably at this process and covered her mouth with one chubby hand and Shad had grinned.

Don't get no fresher'n this, ma'am, he told her cheerfully and she made a small gagging noise in her throat.

How.....authentic, she finally managed but we all knew it wasn't exactly the word she'd had in mind.  We watched her watching Gene and the crew as they slipped out of their oilskins and began washing up at the cold water pump - Buttons had adroitly plunged into the water, swum to shore, and was now mindlessly lapping up blood and fish guts - and it was this that finally did her in.  She swayed slightly - long enough for Uncle Shad to whisper Uh-oh, then went down in a heap.   

To everyone's credit, there wasn't so much as a snicker.

The Price of Peanuts

The debate was over six cellophane'd bags of peanuts.

The customer claimed she'd been overcharged a nickel a bag and the drugstore cashier claimed she'd misread the flyer.  Things were heating up by the time I reached the counter and I was regretting thinking I could dash in and out to get an emergency print made.  I never use the drugstore for photo printing - not to be immodest but I have too much respect for my own work - but this day I needed a temporary print and I needed it in a hurry.  I didn't count on the price of peanuts.  The cashier fumed and fussed but finally relented and grudgingly handed the customer a $.30 refund before turning to me and muttering hep ya which I interpreted as an abbreviated version of May I help you.

I need you to make me an 8X12 print, please, I said and tried to hand over a dvd, I'll pick it up after five.

You can use the machine, she responded and waved an indifferent hand in the general direction of the self service kiosk.

I don't have time, I said apologetically, Could you please just make the print for me?

She glared.  She smacked her gum.  She considered.  

It don't take long, she finally said.

I'm sure it doesn't, I said slowly, but I don't have time.

Unbelievably, she snatched the dvd from my still outstretched hand, stalked to the kiosk and jammed it in the slot.

Follow the directions, she muttered.

And that was when the internal censor in my head stepped aside for the old woman who wears purple and whispered "Enough".

With a calm I didn't feel and wasn't at all sure I could maintain, I walked to the kiosk and pushed the eject button and then walked back to the counter.

Do you have a manager? I asked.

The glare.  The gum.  The considering.

Yeah, she finally said, Why?

Because, I said, I want to talk to someone who actually understands English.  She scowled but by that point we were attracting attention and I discovered I didn't give a damn.  When I tell you I don't have time, I said deliberately, It. Means I. Don't. Have. Time.  Your job is to say that you'll be happy to do it for me, not argue about it.  So get me someone who understands the language and has some manners.

The old woman who wears purple and doesn't stop to think before she speaks has taken up residence inside my head.  I might be silenced by tact and fear of confrontation but having lived too long in an uncivil world, she will not be.  

Bless her heart.

Second Star To The Right

This weekend's Harry Potter marathon reminded me how much I love the idea of magic, of witches and wizards and spells and potions and all manner of winged creatures living in enchanted forests and immortality.  No matter your age, imagination is a precious and glorious gift.  I remember when Wendy asked Peter where he lived ~ Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning, he answered and I closed my eyes and saw myself hand in hand with the original Lost Boy, on a direct flight to Never Never Land.  Fanciful as it may be, this is how I like to think about life's journey and especially how I like to think about death.  The shell we've worn for however many years wears out but surely our souls travel somewhere - and why not to Never Never Land?  Why not to a childhood we miss or never had, to a place where we never have to grow up, where there are pirates and pixies and slow moving, mostly harmless crocodiles, a land where we all remember how to fly.

It's been my experience that we poor, frail humans - nothing more than carbon units as any good trekkie knows - can get used to anything in time, even the reality of our short lives and the uncertainty of the next step.  With all due respect to my atheist friends, I can't embrace nothingness - I may not know if God is God or nature or the remnants of the human spirit - but I have to believe that there is a force at work here and that it carries over.  Despite my cynicism and rage and occasional despair, despite the fact it often acts contrary to my wishes, I can't not believe.

It's hard to sit in a beautiful old church on a warm September afternoon and say goodbye to a good friend.  At the end of the service, his ashes are reverently carried to the small rose garden and buried with friends and family looking on.  There's thunder in the air and we pray for rain and redemption in the same breath.  Then we gather at the little house where there's enough food to feed several armies and there's story telling and tears and laughter and of course, music.  People come and go all the afternoon and into the evening and in time their faces begin to blur.  This is part of how we grieve and accustom ourselves to the changes death brings and the newly dug holes in our lives.  We learn to walk around the pitfalls and memory becomes a comfort and a heartache simultaneously.

Friends and families do their best and depart.  Life resumes where we left off and the stars come out.

Second star to the right and straight on til morning, I remind myself, like Hogwarts or Heaven or Never Never Land or Rainbow Bridge.

All the world is made of faith and trust and pixie dust ~ JM Barrie

Lockjaw

Mid salami sandwich, the pressure and pain of what feels like a golf ball suddenly lodges in my throat and doesn't respond to multiple efforts to swallow.  The sensation of choking borders on intense and then without any warning, radiates into my jaw, flowing evenly up both sides of my face until it reaches just below my ears. I remember a post I recently read about heart attacks in women and with a panicky kind of shock realize that this was exactly what was described and my mind races trying to recall the other symptoms.  I'm still doing this when it stops as suddenly as it started and after a minute or two I'm inclined to shrug it off but the jaw thing has gotten my attention.

Listen, I tell my handsome and gentle natured doctor a day or so later as he listens to my tale of woe and then to my heart, I understand that you can't smoke like a chimney, not exercise, live on chocolate and get to be 65 without expecting some consequences but please tell me that these are symptoms of something besides cardiac arrest.

Like what? he asks and his smile gives him away.

Indigestion!  I offer, acid reflux, eating too fast, lockjaw!

Lockjaw? he asks, raising his eyebrows and peering at me over his reading glasses, An intriguing possibility but not likely.  He patiently explains to me that the nerves in the heart are connected to the nerves in the esophagus and that if something catches in your throat - a chunk of salami on white bread, let's say - pressure and pain radiating to the jaw aren't all that uncommon.  You had no other symptoms, he adds calmly, and it passed quickly.  I'd bet my bass guitar there's no heart issue but I'm sending you to a cardiologist for an evaluation, just to be thorough.  He gives me a hug and a wink and sends me on my way.

Considering my age and lifestyle - both on the regrettable side - I am in remarkable health.  Granted, I do keep my teeth in a glass at night but I have no replacement parts and no chronic complaints.  Still, I think as I leave, it might be time to make some changes.  Chocolate honestly isn't a major food group and a daily walk isn't likely to kill me.

On the other hand, there's always time to worry about such things tomorrow.















                                                                                                                                

Dust to Dust

I read her obituary with sadness and despite her age - a feisty and still tack sharp 98 - a deep sense of loss.  I remembered when we had teased her about hooking her up with another patient, a widower of 97, and how she had given us a wide and mostly toothless grin before asking if he was well fixed. 

Ain't got the time or inclination for a poor man! she'd said and given her walker a brisk shove.

Amen, Mama! her daughter, a spring chicken of barely 72 had wholeheartedly agreed and they had both laughed.

There's a lot we can learn from our elders.  We ought to respect them and listen to their stories and lessons.
They're not as irrelevant as we so casually think.

For most of her life, her daughter told me, she'd cleaned white folks' houses to put food on the table.  She rode the bus as she was too poor to own a car, cared for a disabled husband for some 40 years, and raised six children.  She loved her family and her church, hated taking charity, and didn't have much time to worry about the world's problems.  If it was past her own front door, the Lord would provide or it would take care of itself.
She'd loved Martin Luther King and the Kennedys, home grown okra, old Baptist hymns and porch sitting with a mending basket in her lap.  She didn't drink, didn't smoke - except for the occasional chaw of tobacco which she said eased the pain of ill fitting dentures - and didn't hold with divorce or sex before marriage.  She'd voted in every presidential election since 1928 even when no one made it easy or fair and she made her own decisions.  She worried about being black in a white world but she didn't let it slow her down.  She remembered race riots, was horrified by drug use, thought courtesy was an underused commodity and would't stand for sass no matter the source.

Whether you live to 98 or are struck down in your prime, what matters is that you lived and made a difference in someone else's life.  We remember, we celebrate the lives of those who leave us and some way or another, we find a way through the sadness.

For my daddy, death was many things - an adversary, a fact of life, a transition, and a business.  He met and confronted it on a daily basis, comforted the victims it left behind and helped them grieve.  I often wondered how he could do such a thing and still find the strength and courage to stand straight. 

We are all dying from the very moment we're born, he used to tell me, If you're granted enough time, you get used to the idea.

And if you're not? I would ask, If you're a child or innocent or the time is stolen?

And he would smile and tell me not to worry my pretty little head about such things, we all come from dust and we all go back to dust, there is a plan and a heaven and no one really leaves us if we keep them in our hearts.

And this comforts people? I demanded rudely, Hollow words?

No, he told me gently, but it does help us get through the worst of it.  A little.  The rest we just learn to live with.

The idea that death is a natural part of life is supposed to be comforting.  We're taught it's just the last step to the next level - harps and angels and eternal life if not the pit - and much as I want to believe that, as much as I want to embrace some kind of acceptance, all I can find to be grateful for is an end of suffering.  The act of dying is an evil and multi-faceted creature that takes joy in pain, thriving on misery until death becomes a mercy.  I've learned to live with the loss of people I loved but I will never forgive or forget cancer's handiwork in taking them.  It's an offense and an obscenity on every level and I find no comfort in the idea that all things go back to God.

Each day I find myself waiting for the inevitable telephone call that will tell me my friend David's battle is over.
Yesterday I stood my his bedside remembering the gifted, vibrant, truly out of the ordinary artist he had been such a short time ago - nimble fingered, long haired, deep voiced - so content to live quietly with his painting and his music, never really at ease when spotlighted.  His wife tells me how glad she is that she's well enough and strong enough to care for him, how grateful to discover how much he is loved and admired.  And just as a reminder that life goes on, a litter of kittens plays just outside the door, learning to scramble up steps and attack innocent flowers.  They are bright eyed, curious and unafraid of this new and mysterious world.  Jean picks one up and holds it to her cheek, whispering encouragement, praise and comfort.  And she smiles.

We live, we learn, we get through it.

Tatters & Shreds

The remains of what was once a moderately priced but perfectly good queen size bedspread lie in tatters and shreds all over the kitchen floor.  While I am struggling to understand how he managed to pull it out from between the bars of his kennel, the little dachshund trots to me, tail wagging violently, eyes shining with pride.  He can't quite decide whether to give me his I did it all by myself or the more familiar I know it looks bad but it's all circumstantial look.  He compromises with the deceptively casual I love you and thought you'd never get home look and to emphasize the point - and divert my attention - charges me at full speed just before enthusiastically falling on the floor and rolling onto his back, his little legs pumping like pistons, his tail fanned out and moving so fast that it's all a blur. 

I take note of the fact that there is not a single cat to be seen amid all this carnage and am not surprised. Toilet paper and unsuspecting paper towel rolls are much more their style.

The small brown dog peeks at me from behind a barricade of couch pillows, doing her best to appear innocent and uninvolved, but given away by a telltale chunk of stuffing snagged in her collar.  The black dog, a lifelong believer in the best defense being a good offense (I strongly suspect she's a closet republican), emerges from under the couch, crawling on her belly but still managing to give me a defiant stare despite the ragged strip of bedspread fabric draped over one ear.

I should be upset.
I should be angry.
I should be - at the very least - annoyed.

Well, I tell them resignedly, Considering I was only gone 45 minutes, I'd say this is pretty impressive work.

Hearing no reproach in my voice, all three bound my way, joyfully barking and running in frantic circles around my ankles.  Dozens of wayward little puffs of stuffing fly about randomly and the room begins to resemble a cartoon snowstorm.  Punishment would be futile, even if I had the heart it would be a useless gesture and they wouldn't make the connection, so there's no alternative except to join the game.  I set the brown paper bag of groceries on the counter, drop to the floor and am immediately set upon by cold, wet noses and warm, wiggly little bodies.

It takes another 45 minutes to clean up the disaster and restore order and only then do the cats deign to make an appearance.  Reserved and disdainful as only cats can be, they stroll in and begin an expectant and somewhat elegant dinner dance.

Tatters and shreds.  Just one more reminder that I'm nowhere near as in control as I like to think.

One Armed Walt

Midway through one of the minister's most passionate sermons on the evils of alcohol, an explosion rocked the walls of the village church and sent the congregation scurrying for cover.  Seconds later, the shock wave set the windows to vibrating, threatening to send a shower a glass over all the faithful.

 Holy Christ! the minister yelled, Cover your heads!

Repent! another voice shrieked from the choir loft, crazy as a loon Old Jack Campbell, I thought to myself.

Everybody out! Uncle Shad shouted above the noise, Everybody out now!

Stay put for now, my grandmother told me calmly, the Lord's house is made of sterner stuff than this.  

There was a hum in the air but the walls and windows held and everyone filed out, orderly but watchful.  In the bright Sunday sunshine, the sweet salt air was beginning to smell like smoke.  The minister, having regained his composure and seriously regretting his words, slipped out of his robe and organized a small party of island men to investigate.  It was then that Walt Nickerson emerged from the woods behind The Memory Garden, his clothes in tatters and his face blackened.  He staggered toward the church yard and we all saw that not only had his hunting vest been blown to smithereens, his arm had gone with it.

Sorry, rev'end, he managed to mumble and then promptly collapsed in a bloody heap.

Repent!  Old Jack was madly shouting and to the amazement of everyone, even my grandmother, the minister turned on a dime and with one shockingly well aimed punch, silenced the man and sent him cartwheeling backwards.  A second later, Old Jack went down like a sack of potatoes.  By that time, the new young doctor had arrived on the scene and was crisply issuing orders while cutting away the remnants of Walt's vest and flannel shirt.  A half dozen island men carried the old bootlegger across the road and into the doctor's office while Rowena was summoned to assist - between Walt's gaping wound and Old Jack's gushing broken nose, there was considerable blood - and Jack's wetly muffled pleas for attention went unnoticed until the minister's wife finally took pity on him.  Lilly led him into the parsonage and packed his nose with gauze and damp dishtowels while her husband looked on, too shamed to help and too defiant to offer an apology.

Damn fool, Walt Nickerson, Uncle Shad allowed to my grandmother, Doc's got his work cut out fer sure though I don't hardly give a plug nickel for his chances.

It was far and away the general opinion - between blood loss and shock, no one imagined that he'd last the night without the mainland hospital and there didn't appear any transportation fast enough to get him there in time.  

But, as Nana liked to say, life's a funny old dog.  Someone suddenly remembered that there was a funeral in Westport that very day, the mainland funeral home had sent their hearse to deliver the body and it was still waiting to make the return trip.

Be empty sure's yur born, Uncle Shad pointed out, and that coffin carrier can surely fly when she needs to.

My grandmother nodded.  A sensible if slightly macabre idea, Shadrach, she said with a smile.

And so it was that Walt was packed into the hearse and whisked away to the mainland, where - against all odds - he survived the journey, the emergency surgery, and an extended recovery period.  He returned to the island that winter - courtesy of the mail car - thinner, sober, redeemed and one armed with his whiskey making days put firmly behind him.  He had, so it was said, woken up in the hearse at one point and been scared straight into salvation.

It took the minister, a devout pacifist and a man of God, a little longer to make peace first with himself and then with Old Jack.  He was, he admitted ruefully, torn between regret at having violated a basic religious principle and pride in having a powerful and most un-christian, mean right hook.