Remnants for the Future

"A lively understandable spirit Once entertained you. It will come again. Be still. Wait." - Theodore Roethke

Last night while watching the second season of Northern Exposure, I began suddenly to cry. 'What is going on,' thought I. 'Aren't I perfectly happy? I have a house to go in from the cold. I have money with which to buy food. I am stong and of a sound mind. So why then am I experiencing sudden sad, intensely painful, yet sweet feelings?'

"The TV screen is blank. Vikorn is looking at me with an expression of almost academic - and drunken - curiosity. 'My brother talked about you and Pichai quite a lot. He said you were both very talented in different ways. He said your problem was your total lack of identity. You can be anyone your like, literally, but only for short periods of time. Who were you just then, the victim?"

'I was distracted,' said I, 'studying Chris.' I observe how his lips curve up at the corner, making him appear perpetually happy. It is as simple as the luck of the genetic draw. People have always told me to "smile". If I had been born with different lips, my life would be totally different. And if I had given (after all, why are we here?), truly given, I would be dead. And free. Wouldn't I have reached our common destination? The tie that binds. The reason for everything that happens in between. There are no strangers.

"The fact that we don't know this man isn't important, really, because his experience is our experience, and his fate, up here, is our fate. 'Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas,' says the preacher. All is vanity. I think that's a pretty good epitaph for all of us. When we are stripped of all our earthly possessions, and all our fame, and family, and friends, we all face death alone. But it's that solitude in death that's our common bond in life. I know it's ironic, but it's just the way things are. 'Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas.' Only when we understand all is vanity, only then it isn't."

And so we spoke the language of 'yes'.

Merit Lost in the Be Here Now

The last day is already gone, she said, all eaten up by cannibals of thought. Fear of death holds us down, screams HOLLER UNCLE! I once saw a woman with rubber skin, the only person to be truly happy and released from expectations. Her own. I watched her carefully from under the tent. And Ch'an Master Sheng Yen sat rapping.

Whatever you are doing, just do it.
Do not concern yourself with the approval or disapproval of others.
Do not think about whether you look like a fool or not.
People waste so much time and energy trying to impress or take advantage of others........ If in your mind you are clearly aware of what is happening around you or to you, then it does not matter what others perceive or believe. You may appear to be foolish or gullible to others, but in your mind you know you are not.

So I kept on truckin. Moving down the sidewalk I saw vagabonds and whores, sons of bitches, they took me down and kissed me in all the right places while I meowed like a cat in my past life. Getting up slowly and assessing the damage, which may be great, my desire to be human lessened. The bodies of the arhats passed by me like horizontal rain and I, dripping with desire, heard them rapping.

So come on baby let me show you how
The less you know the more I comprehend
You don't have to drag me down
I descend

File Sharing

When you die your blog will float weightlessly in the worldwide web (forever) until one day it will catch the eye of a small girl wearing decaying animal skin found in a desert near what was once a house where she lived (long ago) now.

Plucking it out of the air like a coke bottle, it becomes desire, she calls it mother, takes it to bed (far away) and keeps it warm and safe under her clothes until the orange sun threatens exposure. Then she tunnels under around over, winding, circling, crawling, flatout bending gasping until she emerges in a room.

One tiny room, where your blog is disassembled, sampled, studied, combined, merged and fitted tightly to an age-old movie reel found in a seedy basement apartment. Add video, add audio, mix in some documentary footage and reality programming, some news footage of the world ending the world ending the world ending the world ending and you will be the last installation (loop it), the last music video on MTV (for a start).

"Waiting is difficult only for those beset by the delusion of time."

I moved Dolly into a new place, out of the rehab ward into assisted living. The facility is smaller and is located on a lake with a beautiful bay window view from her room of trees and a walking trail. Soon we were sitting in the commons with ten other residents, all with "assorted quirks in their heads", as one old man put it, and I listened to the conversation go round and round to the exact same statements met with the exact same surprised responses over and over again. Dolly remarked on the scent of the roses in the centerpiece. Where are you from? What did you do there? When were you born? Each time was a revelation.

Dolly wanted me to spend the night, but I left, excusing myself with the thought that she would acclimate more quickly if I was out of sight. Lately she has the idea that she is going home. At the rehab facility, she packed her belongings, which now fit easily into a large basket, and told her fellow hallmates "goodbye". For several days they have been agitated with the desire to go home, all of them, and asked Dolly every few minutes, "When are you going home?" They would then declare, "I want to go home!"

I suppose Dolly will begin wearing a bra again. At her new home people are snappily dressed and proud. Dolly had begun to sink into that hole where the desperate man in the wheelchair, sitting alone at the dining room table calling for "chicken pot roast" for an eternity, resides. She flashed me one day when I asked if she was wearing a bra. Pulling her stretchy shirt over her head, she said, "No! See?" In spite of being slightly mortified, I was delighted. Dolly, liberated at last! Or was she simply growing slovenly from spending time with people who were institutionally insane? Would she soon be yelling out demands from her room for turkey ice cream and quietly shedding her clothes in public?

Last night I saw the new James Bond movie, which seemed to go on endlessly, like some fast-moving loop of super-human feats of strength mixed with what could be called sociopathic romance, I guess. I don't know what the movie was about, but moment by moment I enjoyed the colors and shapes. Later I went to bed and read a bit of Bankok 8. It seemed so familiar, and soon it became apparent that I was reading a paragraph that I had previously read. Last night? Last week? It doesn't matter. I enjoyed it all over again. It seemed utterly new and perfect. Like a revelation.

"And then, of course, there are my almost nightly conferences with my dead soul partner, which I've not told you about. These days, apparently, he is not in the least interested in matters arising from the destruction of his chemical body, which, on reflection, he is glad to be rid of. There are plenty of ways of getting in touch, he tells me mysteriously while we share the twilight zone between waking and sleeping."

Again.

Icy Future

We have arrived at Thanksgiving in a whirlwind. No time to rest or reconsider our destination, our eyes have become canny tools of quick-search and avoidance. Dizzy from movement, we head out for a walk. Is it still summer, wishful thinker? Or does this brisk air harbor undertones of an icy future? Hugging your blanket around your neck, I red-handedly light fire, say "Isn't this exhilerating?!", bring water to a boil, check your feet for frostbite.

New Language

I sped over to see Dolly, who now lives twice as far away, about 80 miles, after work yesterday . I found her sitting in her room. Just sitting. No TV turned on, no stimulation whatsoever. She was glad to see "me", or rather she was glad to see "Georgia". She introduced me as "Georgia" at dinner.

The hall is set up so the residents' rooms are circled around a big open area where they all gather for meals (at like, 4:30pm). The women at Dolly's table are Jean, (who actually lived in the same town as Dolly!) and who really likes to talk about the orchard they used to own... Loudly. She is a no-nonsense midwest farm woman, with thick ankles and support hose. You know the kind. She also wears socks on her arms, with cutouts for her fingers and thumbs. I can already tell she is a mix of obligatory politeness ("The food is good here." "I felt at home right away.") and disgruntledness ("Is somebody coming to get me?!" "I've been waiting a long time.") One thing I like about her: When she tells stories about her husband, they always call each other "babe". One anecdote went something like this: "My husband said, "You're going to go to the beauty parlor every month. That's your wedding present, Babe. I get a haircut every month. Why shouldn't you go to the beauty parlor every month?" Jean, it has already become apparent, can be dominant. During my first visit she invited us to visit her room, straight across from Dolly's, to "see her dollhouse and photos"(!). After we weaseled out (Dolly and Pip and I went off to explore the building instead) she sat in her doorway and stared into Dolly' s room for some time.

There is a quite large and sober woman named Georgia who likes ice cream. She has gotten ice cream both times I have joined the group for dinner. She is a non-participant, but yesterday she became active when Grace, who is 102 years old, dribbled some baked beans down her chin. "She has food on her chin!" said Georgia forcefully. "I guess I'm the only one who noticed that!" Grace's beautiful young granddaughter, who was visiting from Toronto and had, I'm sure, already noticed and dismissed as unimportant the food dribble, dutifully wiped it clean. Grace is totally deaf. Like a petite little sprite, she sits at the table completely isolated from the other women because she can't hear them. She usually keeps her eyes down, but when she does connect with you, she is sweet and apologetic. "I won't be joining in the conversation because I can't hear!" Dolly, who can't remember from one moment to the next, keeps trying to ask her things, like "You didn't want your jello?" She interprets Grace's lack of jello-appetite and informs Georgia, "It must be all the excitement of having company."

There are a couple of old men in Dolly's hall, but they seem particularly "out of it", or maybe retirement communities are the one place in the world where women really dominate. One of the men has startlingly beautiful blue eyes, with which he makes contact with mine each time I pass. I have never heard him say a word. The other wears big thick glasses and is constantly slumped down in a wheelchair. He stayed in the common area for at least an hour after dinner yesterday calling loudly, "Bring me some chicken pot roast! I want some chicken pot roast!" We were in her room playing solitaire, which turned into a fiasco. I guess Dolly isn't ready for numbers yet, or cards, either. She still has a lot of trouble reading her watch. And while I'm at it, she has no idea what the cord with the red button is for, no matter how many times we remind her that it is for calling the nurse! The game of solitaire became simply an exercise of placing red and black cards in the right sequence on the stack, which was fun in itself. We cheered when all the cards were in four piles as the gruff voice demanded from the other room, "Where did you put the chicken pot roast?"

Dolly and I walked down the hall a couple of times and it was obvious she is much stronger. When we got back to her room she was tired and I was ready to leave (even though she said sadly, "Can't you spend the night?"). The voice outside her door had left chicken pot roast behind and begun its' nighttime call. "Come get me! Somebody come get me!"

Listening intently, Dolly and I began to giggle, and she quipped, "Yes! Please come get him!" But his demands echoed down the quiet hallway, past the elevator and the nurses' station and into the night. "Come get me! Come and get me!"

What's Important

Georgia is flying in tomorrow from Oregon to spend a week with Dolly. Her daughter Pip has been visiting Dolly every day since she was moved from the hospital back to the retirement community, (which is what "they" call it). Pip and I took Dolly for a wheelchair ride around the place, and it is more like a college dormitory/swanky European hotel. Dolly wasn't all that interested in the pool when we reached the lower levels, but Blue and Pip and I want to jump in the beautiful blue water and do water aerobics! Three times a week!

Georgia and Willa's daughters, Pip and Blue, have been so capable and competent during Dolly's health crisis. Blue is the organizer, with notebooks and file folders and questions for the doctor. And Pip's no-nonsense get-in-up-to-your-elbows style is great. She gets close to Dolly, and isn't afraid to interact with this new person.

The next week will be busy. Grades are due, it is the end of the 1st quarter already, and next week are the dreaded P/T Conferences, of which I have written horror stories in the past. In the past. Now is the present, and I don't want to miss it.

Completely Free

It is amazing what people don't notice. For instance. I have skipped out of the past three staff meetings . It makes me wonder. Could I miss every staff meeting this year.... and, therefore, be completely free? People are busy. There is a lot that they would rather not see.

Dolly had a stroke on Sunday. This was after I took her to the emergency room Saturday because she had trouble breathing. They said she had heart failure and pneumonia. Spending the night in the hospital with buzzers and blinking lights brings some sort of jagged comfort, I suppose. The neurologist held up a package of crackers and asked Dolly what it was. She said, "Potato."

Now Dolly is at the "Retirement Community," doing intensive physical, occupational and speech therapy. Fuckin-A. This cycle of life and death is a mother-fucker. Isn't it?