First Things First

The new doctor is young, with masses of dark curly hair that fall well past her slender shoulders and a ready smile. I like and am comfortable with her from the very first moment but still it's a struggle to articulate my feelings of depression and the anxiety that accompanies them. I don't want to sound like I'm whining or looking for a quick fix and I'm reassured when she listens intently, meeting my eyes unwaveringly and nodding with comprehension when I manage a coherence I don't fully feel.

She frowns at my smoking but is gentle about it, writing a prescription for an anti depressant and saying “First things first. We get you to feeling better than maybe we'll talk about your smoking.”

My weight earns another frown, as unexplained weight gain or loss often does. Without changing a thing, mine has been up and down like a roller coaster these past few years, going from 147 to 105 to 125 to 118 to today's 1o3.

“Might be your emotional state,” she says carefully, “But we'll look at everything again just to be sure.” Another smile, this one just a shade more cautious. “Though I would prefer you didn't lose any more.”

She orders blood work and a chest x ray, mentions that I might want to be taking an aspirin every day - I already am, have been for years - praises my blood pressure and recommends leaving the cyst on the back of my neck alone unless it starts to bother me.

We agree, just as my former doctor and I always did, that all things considered, I'm in fine shape for the shape I'm in. I think I've chosen well.

Just Geography

“It's 96 in the shade,” my friend Jen protests when she puts aside her guitar and takes a break,

“How do you stand it?”

“I try never to complain about the heat,” I tell her serenely, “It'll be gone soon enough.”

“Are we talking about the weather?” she frowns.

“Maybe,” I say with a shrug, “And maybe not.”

It's late August here in the south and while the heat is merely suffocating, the humidity is a heavy, water-soaked blanket settled over us all. It blots out the sun and makes it hard to breathe. We are encased in it. Rivers of sweat pour over into our eyes and down our necks, eye glasses and camera lenses fog up. Hairlines turn sauna-wet and dripping and faces glisten. The patio is covered and there are strategically placed industrial strength fans at every corner but still it feels like a blast furnace. Jen downs a glass of ice water, towels off, and returns to the stage. Hoping for just one clean shot, I pick up my trusty Nikon and aim it in her direction but some nights it just isn't there and I settle for listening to the music.

I think a lot about the weather these days. How unpredictable it is, how completely out of our control it is, how it can be almost impossible to prepare for and how it can change in the mere blink of an eye. Just when you get used to a certain season, it's gone overnight. The heat will fade soon enough, we will slip into a too short autumn and then a long and drawn out winter. It's not something I look forward to.

It's funny to me how friends are surprised at how much I mind the cold.

“But you're from New England,” they say, “You grew up with it.”

“And left it the first chance I had,” I point out, “Although in hindsight, I wonder if I shouldn't have kept going until I got to an ocean.”

Then again, maybe it's all just geography.

Rat Central

“I've got it cornered!” Michael shouts at me through the door, “Don't let the dogs in!”

Brandishing a broom in one hand and clutching a metal dustpan in front of him like a shield, Michael is half standing, half crouching in the kitchen, confronting the third rat. Sensing a threat, the dogs begin to jump and paw at the door, howling like banshees and barking non stop.

“Is it dead?” I shout as I navigate through what I expect will turn into a stampede at any moment.

“God-dayum if I know!” he shouts back.

One by one, I drag the dogs away by their collars and shut them in the front room then open the door just a crack. “Poke it,” I tell him impatiently, “See how fast it moves.”

He glares at me, takes a deep breath and stretches out the broom, jabbing at the unfortunate rodent and flinching quickly back.

“Oh, shit,” he mutters, “It's alive. Barely. Should I smash it over the head?”

The very idea makes me queasy.

“No,” I tell him, swallowing hard and hoping I won't be sick, “Just sweep it up and put in the trash.”

A couple of days later, I notice that the little pit mix is obsessed with something in the yard and when I investigate, I find a dead rat. That makes four.

And then came yesterday.

“Something smells in the kitchen,” Michael tells me, “Can you hang around while I move the stove and see if there's anything there?”

I would prefer, I think, to be in hell with a broken back, but I agree. We lock the dogs out, I arm myself with the broom, and he drags the stove away from the wall. I see the tail immediately and it takes all I have not to retch. The rat is very dead but he's also wedged in, snagged on some piece of stove underworks and we can't dislodge him. When Michael moves the stove, the corpse moves with it and the smell is revolting.

“Enough,” I finally say, “I'm calling the exterminator.” And for once, Michael doesn't argue.

Denver, our trusted, dog-loving and invariably cheerful pest control guy, arrives later that day and between the two of them, they manage to retrieve, remove and dispose of the 5^th rat and spread a generous helping of poison in its wake.

The battle is won. The outcome of the war is yet to be determined.

How Did We Get Here?

It's obscenely depressing to watch everything good and decent and fair in this country being stripped away. The crushing weight I've felt since the morning after the November election is heavier and more oppressive every day and I've never felt so grateful to not have children.

How will we justify the world we're leaving them? How will we explain that we chose it?

I am grateful that:

I will not have to explain to my children or their's why they have no health insurance and may die for lack of care.

Nor why the cities are black with pollution and choked with smog.

Nor why there is no clean water or safe air.

Nor why there are no national parks to visit.

Nor why they are not protected from predatory bankers.

Nor why the oceans are poisoned.

Nor why they can be arrested if their skin color is darker than mine.

Nor why they are not free to marry regardless of gender.

Nor why, should they be female, they are considered second class citizens, if they are considered citizens at all.

Nor why they've heard stories of immigrant children living in cages.

Nor why there are no decent jobs or decent schools.

Nor why the churches preach hate and the politicians preach to the rich.

Nor why there are no more elephants or leopards or giraffes or pandas or rhinos.

Nor where their social security has gone or why a prescription drug is more than a house note.

Nor how and why this country self-destructed into war against its own for profit.

I won't live to see all the consequences of the decisions being made for and against us. I won't see the final solutions of a government run wild with corruption and greed, monstrous stupidity and contempt for every living thing that isn't white, male and wealthy. I'm only sorry for those who will.

Accidents Happen

The basement, often a place of refuge for my daddy, smelled not unpleasantly of sawdust and cigarette smoke. The furnace rumbled on and off, producing a sweetish oil scented outpouring of heat that nicely countered the natural chill of the sterile brick walls and in the background, sometimes drowned out by hammering or the steady whine of a saw, WGBH broadcast the evening jazz shows my daddy so loved and rarely missed. Bix Beiderbecke was playing the night my brother had his tantrum and tumbled down the stairs, screaming obscenities and clutching a baseball bat.

“Foul mouthed little bastard!” I heard my mother yell from the top of the stairs, “I'll give you something to cry about!”

And with that, the door slammed with a shudder and even over the noise and mayhem, I heard the key turn.

“You'll learn some manners or I'll know the reason why!” my mother shouted hoarsely through the door, “Vicious little son of a bitch!”

How he wasn't killed - and I confess, I was hoping desperately - was a mystery. He did have a badly broken arm, one leg was shattered in a couple of places, and both cheekbones were fractured but he survived. When my mother refused to unlock the door, my daddy was forced to carry him out, blessedly unconscious, through the back cellar door to the old station wagon and then to the ER where we spent the rest of the night. My daddy, pale and anxious, spent most of the time pacing, avoiding the eyes of the ER staff, and arranging with my grandmother for her to pick up my other brother and then come and get me. Everyone accepted the explanation of an accidental fall down the cellar stairs without question. It was 1958 and if the doctors were suspicious, they kept it to themselves. I thought there was an excellent chance that he'd been pushed but I was a well trained child when it came to keeping family secrets and besides I was already regretting he hadn't been pushed harder.

After a week or two, he was sent home and while I don't remember how long he was bedridden, it was a long time and he was held back a year in school. My mother waited on him hand and foot all that late fall and winter, never showing the first sign of either hostility or remorse, and certainly never admitting it hadn't been an accident. There was never any proof and he never accused her so it became just one more thing we didn't talk about.

“Accidents happen,” my grandmother said on one of her visits, “Boy's lucky enough to be alive and it don't make no sense to dwell on how it happened.”

That was when I knew my daddy had told her about what we'd heard my mother shouting in the seconds before the fall. More, I understood that it was not to be brought up again and never shared outside the family. Just like that, silence became conspiracy and conspiracy became cover up.

Accidents happen. Sometimes they have a little help. Sometimes they don't have quite enough.