Having Lived.

This winter I met a dying man. He had the eyes of a gentle imp, lit with delight in living a life well examined. His bones were but bonfires blazing orange against the abyss, the ticking of his venerable heart measured  hours  melting to nothingness, and time was useless in the face of his last appointment. He spoke as if he knew all of this. I knew from my friend, his son, that he did not. At least officially. Though he hinted. He reckoned and I rested caught in a rain of words rolling from clouds that parted in stutters and starts as he spoke in tracks and in trains, relentless stories needing to be told. He shaped and unshaped who he was and had been, an anecdotal sculptor restlessly forming meaning from clay long fired and kiln set.

He spoke of his son. “I lucked out with him”, he said. “I didn’t tell him that of course”. “Why not?”, I wondered in silence. Why wouldn’t he? “I don’t think that I’m as smart as he is”, he said. “He makes the best of everything”. 

The tales he told were fabulous. Whether or not his stories were fascinating themselves I can’t know for, the glee in which he traveled crenulated folds of mind was enough to enrapture a moment of mine. 

“If I go to YOUR god today, I’m a happy man. I have no regrets and I’ve never hurt anybody. Then again, we don’t always know when we’ve hurt somebody.”

Human, he must have hurt others. I can’t imagine it but I know it to be so. How wonderful though to hold hurting others as the  thing that one would regret and how wonderful to die with no regrets. Having lived.

Lerng to Spel 2

Today my friend Maggie wrote a lovely and heartfelt post about the sweetness of children finding their way with words as they learn to spell the world around them. Her post brought to mind one of the first sentences my young one wrote, just over a year ago, and the joy and pride those printed sentiments brought to me. In a brief epistle penned for his brother he summed up the fraternal love between them.

Made me proud.

Knot In My Backyard

I don’t have cable and don’t read the Newspress, only the NY times. Instead I rely on my friends, including the Independent, to tell me what’s going on Santa Barbara. As such, I’m fairly clueless as to what is going on around me, (what film festival?). Today, in  a peaceful moment I sat down at the computer to check my e-mail and was ambushed by the following………..  Subject: Homeless Shelter approved near Peabody-Come to mtg next Wed, 6:30 To: X Date: Friday, January 28, 2011, 11:23 AM Peabody Parents and San Roque neighbors:Please pass this on to everyone you know….San Roque neighborhood/Peabody School needs a voice…Read below…. From: X Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 1:00 PM To: X Cc:  X Subject: RE: homeless housing approved around corner from Peabody !!!! Everyone, I have already spoken to Kate Ford and we scheduled the meeting for next Wednesday at 6:30pm in the Peabody auditorium. She will be sending email to all the Peabody parents. It is our job to alert non-Peabody parents and anyone else we feel is necessary at the meeting. I have also spoken to Rob Pearson, Executive Director of the SB City Housing Authority. He will join the meeting and bring representatives from Willbridge, the non-profit who will manage the project. I have also invited Helene Schneider, the SB mayor and all city council members. X From: X Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 12:49 PM To:X Cc: X Subject: Re: homeless housing approved around corner from Peabody !!!! I talked with my friend Dave about this.   He said the following We need to have a town hall meeting at the school.   He said to have the press (TV and print) at the meeting.  make sure that we have a PACKED house of upset parents.   He said it would be a good idea to have a couple of council members and invite the mayor.   I told him that Das Williams is on the board of the school.  He said to make sure he is on board.  It also can’t hurt to put together a petition and have as many families as possible sign it. On Jan 27, 2011, at 12:03 PM, X wrote: Yes, we’d like to participate there as well.  We support these initiatives, but also would like to see these facilities further than walking distance from elementary schools. On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 11:14 AM, X wrote: I called Kate Ford. I am hoping we can have the meeting at Peabody next week. As soon as it is scheduled I will make sure everyone is aware of time and place. X —–Original Message—– From: X Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 11:10 AM To: X Cc: X; X Subject: Re: homeless housing approved around corner from Peabody !!!! I have met the mayor a few times.   She is also good friends with Dave Mullinax (who is a lobbyist with the California League of Cities).    I would be happy to talk with both of them about this.    I am not a big fan of having this facility across from the school. -X > From: X > Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 10:49 AM > Subject: RE: homeless housing approved around corner from Peabody !!!! > > Everyone, > I just got off the phone with Rob Pearson. Rob is the Executive Director > for the Santa Barbara Housing Authority (www.hacsb.org). He called me > after he received a call from Helene Schneider. His group is in process > of purchasing the complex at 2904 State Street (escrow is supposed to > close on 2/15). They will be leasing it to Willbridge, a local not for > profit organization that focuses on the homeless > (http://www.willbridgeofsantabarbarainc.org/). Willbridge will be > managing the project. > > After a lengthy call we both agreed that it would be best to organize a > meeting for next week where everyone can come together to discuss this > issue. Rob will be attending this meeting along with representatives > from Willbridge. I will reach out to Kate Ford to see if we could > possibly host this meeting at Peabody . > > Since I do not know how everyone feels about the project I do not want > to be the voice of the group. However, I will gladly act as the > facilitator to get everyone together to discuss this issue. > > As soon as the meeting is scheduled I will make sure everyone is made > aware of its time and location. > > X> > > > —–Original Message—– > From: X > Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 8:51 AM > > Subject: homeless housing approved around corner from Peabody !!!! > > Not sure if you all heard about this last night on the news…. but > thought > I should pass it on. > > > http://www.keyt.com/news/local/City-Approves-Purchase-Of-Housing-for-the > -Hom > eless-114685279.html > > Not just homeless, but chronically homeless drug abusers that usually > end up > in jail!! >

 

Shocked, I reread the e-mails wondering if I was really living in 2011 and not transported back to the time of lynchings and backs of the bus. I responded;

On Jan 28, 2011, at 3:23 PM, “Nichol Des Jardins Clark” <ndesjardinsc@earthlink.net> wrote:

What a great opportunity for  temporarily undomiciled people to reach for a better life! I’m sure that the Peabody community will be supportive, blessed as most of us are to have a roof over our head, clear minds, hot water for hygiene, food on our plates, and a safe place to sleep!

I hope that people who attend the town hall meeting search for solutions to make this work. Solutions that will enable the temporarily undomiciled, many of whom have children of their own, to have this chance while at the same time keeping our children in a safe environment.

What a great chance to show our children empathy, to role model a cultural mindset that cares for each member of this community including the disenfranchised and struggling . We all get protective when thinking of our children and at times like these it’s good to remember that each homeless person is somebody’s child too.

If you feel like the new project is going to be unsafe, think of what “safe” would look like. Be solution oriented. Think for yourself. Avoid mob mentality. Make a difference.

nichol

I got one response;

Nichol,

X and I discussed this last night and we agree. 

Bravo for speaking out about this.

X

and now, somehow, I am off of the distribution list. Go figure.

More fodder for indignation at

http://www.keyt.com/news/local/City-Approves-Purchase-Of-Housing-for-the-Homeless-114685279.html

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Recently I’ve been reduced to communicating by armadillo, a method slow and ungainly at best. One that would be difficult to explain. One that ended with my best friend banging on my door to see exactly where I was lying in an unconscious, incontinent puddle. I was just fine, it was my cel phone that had suffered a stroke, and I was quite tickled to know that in the event that I do become incapacitated, I will most likely be found first by somebody that won’t care that I’ve got my granny pants on.

Afterwards, I slunk to the Verizon store and got an ancient flip phone that had been mouldering in a junk drawer since 2005 reactivated, hoping to limp by with it until the inevitable happens a couple of weeks from now. Yeah, I’m tired of arguing with my cel service provider about why exactly I do NOT want an upgrade. Why I do NOT want to get a smart phone. I give in. The digital bullies have me pinned in a corner where I’m stuck helplessly wondering what the hell a 4G  hotspot is and why anybody would want it. One of those G spots should be enough for anybody I would think.

In 1960 Ray Bradbury wrote the following;

“In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction.”

I-phone, here I come.  Wonder what Ray would think.

Just Another Day

Most days as a nurse are long days. Shifts stretch from twelve to fourteen hours, meals are missed, tempers flare. Needs seem endless and sometimes they are unmeetable, no matter how you wish you could answer them all. You see patients disheartened, you see patients lonely. You see their moods mirrored on the faces of your colleagues. Hearts hidden and hearts on the sleeve. You pass somebody that you’ve met once or twice going up in an elevator while looking down and you want to reach out and say that really, it’s going to be okay. Instead you just say, “Hey.” And at the end of it all ………it’s just another day.

Sibling Rivalry

Not having any siblings and having a very small family without much contact with distant or extended family members, I’ve always envied those with brothers or sisters…..dozens of cousins and generous helpings of aunts and uncles. I’ve also been appalled at how my children treat each other because I just don’t get it. They’re swimming in the same gene pool so it would make sense if they threw life preservers at each other when they are in over their heads. Instead they tend to push each other over the edge whenever they have the chance. If there’s a shark in the pool waiting, all the better.

A couple of years ago, actually seven or eight now that I’m thinking about it,  I adopted or was adopted by a family in town. I’m not really sure how it happened but I became, at least in my mind, part of that family. (Even if I didn’t make it on their family calendar this year. Ahem.) The daughters in this family became my babysitters, my friends, my children, my cousins, my siblings…..all rolled into one. The mother became my sister, my parent, and best of all, a friend more loving, supportive, honest, and true then I ever imagined having a friend be. She feeds me too and feels bad when I’m expiring from yet another fatal and rare condition that I’ve recently seen at work, in the hospital. I love them all. Really, truly love them and feel as lucky to have them in my life as to be in theirs.

This year, one of  the daughters made into the “elite 12″,  on the front of the SBAA calendar. I was, of course, very happy for her and not a bit jealous or tinged by a hint of rivalry. Because, remember, I don’t get sibling rivalry.

Belonging

There’s a lot I miss about running with SBAA on Saturday mornings. I’d forgot though, about Kenversations. Tailing far, far behind the fast people Ken and I would yap away throughout the tempos annoying everybody in front of us, (there weren’t any behind).

Happy Sunday morning today, I got to run with crazy trail folk. Ken was among them.

Cold in the morning up at San Ysidro. Somehow I’ve lost all of my warm running gear and showed up with a hideous orange Dunkin Donuts beannie that was handed to me at four a.m. in NY last year. I believe it was a booby prize for being dumb enough to get up in the middle of the night to get across a bridge to an island where I would stand around with 40,000 or so souls in a freezing rain waiting for the opportunity to run for hours in a cement jungle.

I thought that I was cold this morning but Nancy must have been colder. Her center of proprioception was indubitably frozen solid. See……….

Ken fell back from runnning with the manly men and I gasped at him for a while.

We didn’t talk about what we were training for , our mileage, or even what hurt. Instead we fell onto Maslow’s hierarchy, not  in the context of running so much as in the context of relationships. The conversation was cut short when I took my leave, worried that my son was busily burning down the house in my absence. Driving home I thought some more about Maslow and his attempts at ordering his world through categorization. Running in groups and running in races could be seen as attempts at meeting tiers 3 and 4 in M’s hierarchy. Tier 3 regards the struggle to attain Love or Belonging.  If we’re not finding those at home or at work, what better place to search then on a hillside in a canyon while moving steadily forward mile upon mile? Tier 4 ………Esteem. Well, when we do something crazy like an ultra or when we see our name high, or at least not rock-bottom, in posted race results we feel that we are something.

Anybody know a babysitter that wants to come to my house every Saturday at six a.m.?

A Man’s Home

We went up to Knapp’s castle today and found both the sun and something surprising. There have been some changes up there recently. Much to our wondering eyes did appear signs of human habitation and no signs of deer. An RV, stonework in the shape of an amphitheater, a slip shod storage shack, and a vehement No Vandalizing sign startled us.

The views were still beautiful.

Built in 1916 by George Knapp of Union Carbide and sold in 1940 to Francis Holden who owned it for a mere 5 weeks before it burnt to the ground, the property was  sold to Castillo Cielo Holding Company of Colorado in 2004. In 2010 a 31.3% interest was bought by Calvin L. Smith who might be the person making changes.

Looks like the changes won’t be happening quickly.

It looks like we can still go there…………..for now.

Stage IV

In 1969 Elizabeth Kubler-with-two-funny-dots-over-the-u Ross published a book, “On Death and Dying”. Within the pages she packaged loss,scotch taped into five stages of grief.

One- Denial. When experiencing a devastating loss, the first response is to be simply okay with it. Why not, really? After all, it’s not happening. Suspension of belief. The world slows down. You hear Charlie Brown’s parents yapping at you but from really far away. Reality muffled to nothingness.

Two-Anger. Your mother has cancer. You’re pissed as hell. Why me? It’s so not fair. “He’s on my side of the car seat and we’re road-tripping to Arkansas for god’s sake”, kinda maddening agitation. Sometimes anger at circumstance gets focused through the magnifying lens of your ego. How dare she die when you’ve so much left to say? How dare she leave you? She should have tried harder. She’s giving up. And don’t think that I’ve forgot that she missed my first drama performance in second grade because she forgot about it.

Three-Bargaining. I’m begging, give me another chance. I’ll quit sneaking a smoke after work. I’ll even stop ogling the twenty year old who checks me into 24 Hour Fitness. Anything. Just make it stop.

Four-Depression. The Unbearable Heaviness of Being. I’m not getting out of bed again. EVER. What’s the point really? There is none. No meaning. Nothing but this grief. How hard would the impact off of Cold Springs bridge be really? Might not even feel it.

Five- Acceptance. It’s going to happen. Breathe it out. Unclench and open. Peace. Peace tinged with tears but peace nonetheless.

The order of stages, according to Elizabeth,weren’t set in stone. One can cycle through them in any order and as many times as it takes to get to Acceptance. I don’t remember what she wrote about the percentage of people who actually get to the point of peace.

That’s what she wrote. Kind of. She used bigger words.

Octopus Trap

You can actually die of a broken heart. Although I’ve been told, “Nobody ever died of a broken heart”, I know that there are a lot of Nobodies out there, mostly women.

What happens is that the stress of a divorce ,breakup, or loss of a loved one sends surges of hormones and neurotransmitters straight to the heart which then fails. It gives up. The body in which the sorrowing heart rests has symptoms of Congestive Heart Failure……..shortness of breath, fluid backup, heart pumping ineffectively. They  have sypmtoms of a heart attack on EKG, ( ST segment elevation mimicing that of an anterior wall MI for those of you who just finished their Impulse at Cottage). The apex of the heart which surprisingly is the bottom of the heart, not the top, changes………seen on echocardiogram, it balloons out, dilated and distended, and as such is unable to do what it needs to do. The heart looks like a “takot suba”, a type of octopus trap used in Japan hence the alternative name for this change of heart,  ”Takotsuba cardiomyopathy”. That trap of a heart causes stressed induced cardiomyopathy (= messed up heart muscle). From there you see acute heart failure, ventricular arrhythmias ( the heart beats to a different, lethal drummer), and ventricular rupture. That is breaking. Breaking open.  So you can. Die. From a broken heart.