mercuryfern

Sick

For a long time, I've been age inappropriately conscientious of optimizing my health.  Who reads Prevention Magazine when they are twelve?  (Me.)  In middle school, I became a vegetarian, I guess mostly because animals are cuddly, but honestly, I was also very pleased to know that I was significantly reducing my risk of heart disease.  I'm not, and wasn't then, the candy bars and soy burgers sort, either.  Oh, no, baby, I maximize my nutrient density.  Don't even make me talk to you about antioxidants and B vitamins.   When I worked at a greenhouse as a teenager, I refused to apply the pesticides lest I increase my cancer risk.  In college I toted hot herbal tea in a glass jar which usually managed to leak all over something.  No tumblers for me: plastics offgas, especially into hot liquids, and I was concerned about those compound's influence on my long term reproductive health.

All of this does make a little bit of sense when you consider my mother is ill with a chronic immunodeficiency disorder which varies widely in how well it responds to conventional medicine.   Excersizing regularly and eating well are central strategies for managing her health.

I just found out that a dearly beloved friend has terminal cancer, albeit in remission.  This is the woman who taught me to cook.   She is a macrobiotic chef, the most conscientious eater I know.  No one in existence is kinder to their colon than she has been; where does it get off turning on her now?   Another friend, a marathon runner for god's sake, is living with not dying of the same disease.  What the hell is going on, universe?  People who take exemplary care of their bodies are not supposed to get sick like this.  Why else did I spill so much milkthistle tea all over my goddamn books?

I saw the movie Rent a few weeks back and was struck by the line, "living with living with not dying of AIDS"  (Notice how I alluded to it up there.  No, not plagiarized.)   Living with not dying: reminded me at the time of my mom.   True, there are times when she can't get out of bed, when she runs a fever of 105, when she is rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery, but most times, she is fine; full of energy and ability.   A stranger wouldn't know that she is sick.  She looks so healthy on her good days that associates resent her nonnegotiable need to cancel superfluous commitments when she has a bad one. 

Turns out I know quite a few people who are living with not dying.  Catastrophic diseases assail our beloveds, without sense, without reason or cause.   It is fucking unfair, and I am enraged almost beyond obscenities.

Even more nonsensically,  these folks get up again to stand blinking in what might be the eye of the storm or it's departure, who knows, and find themselves, of all things, living; maybe with renewed appreciation or wisdom or some other crap, I don't know.  From where I sit, though, it doesn't seem like being sick changes a whole lot one way or the other.  I like this better than imagining disease as a penance or a purifying spiritual journey. 

Living with not dying: it's a possibility, but not an unmanageable one. There is hell to pay, to be sure; I'm not claiming to know from physical pain first hand.   But c'mon, we've all read Buddhist texts during one existential crisis or another: life is suffering, is it not?  Our hearts break of loneliness or rejection or betrayal, our grasp on widely experienced reality crumbles under inexplicable weight, and our bodies fail us in malicious untimely ways.   We are neither damned nor made sacred.  The fates shit on us and we handle it the best we can, which, wouldn't you know it, is the perfect way for us, and all the while, there life is, spectacular and ordinary and profound.   Snow falls beautifully, siblings fight, the light hits the water just so, dinner burns.  God is in the details.   This moment, the only thing we ever own, opens and lasts.  We live with not dying.

My mother's illness, Rheumatoid Arthritis, is hereditary.  Her diagnoses came when she was 24, the same age I am now.  For a few months I've been having mysterious pains in the fingers and wrist of my right hand.  RA can begin this way, aching in the joints of your digits, a weakened ability to make the twisting motion required to open a jar.   I am not fatigued the way she was during that first undiagnosed year, though.  Maybe I have just been typing too much in a bad chair, or riding my bike too long.  Not that it matters.  Being without health insurance means I can neither confirm nor deny  such suspicions.   Splurging out of my own pocket for an appointment won’t even help because if a doctor does find anything, besides not being able to afford treatment, I will then have a preexisting condition on the chance I ever do get insured.   As if a chronic degenerative disorder wasn't occasion enough for warm friendly conversations with one's health management professionals.

I've always assumed I would inherit my mother's disease.  This is slightly irrational, because though I have a greater chance of developing RA than does the general population, the numbers still sound a strong probably not. 

Varying amounts of fear rise to meet the thought of my presumed fate.  Influenza or even a bad head cold can reduce me to incoherent sobs:   I hate body aches I hate them I cannot handle this I cannot handle a lifetime of dull throbbing pain everywhere and constant exhaustion and side effects and the loss of mobility and wheelchairs and hospitals and surgery.  Other times, like now, getting sick is just a card I might be dealt: bad, but inevitable.  There are others in my hand.   I'll live.

talk radio

“Yes, Kelly from Kansas City, you are on the air.”

“Yeah, ah, hi, Mike.  I, ah, work at a mental hospital, and most of the people at my place are schizophrenic, but, I mean, ah, they say that guy was bipolar, and those people, when they are manic, are really dangerous, you know?  So, I can’t blame the cop, I support him 100%”

I used to follow news very closely.  I read newspapers, magazines, played hooky from 7th grade to watch C-span.  When these weren't enough, I read books, threw myself into debates, went to protests, circulated petitions, took classes.  I looked down on everyone then, but most of all on the people who didn’t have any opinions, didn’t bother to stay informed.  How could they imagine the details of their own little lives were worth attending to at the expense of striving for a better world?

It’s been a few years since the details of my own little life have pushed everything else out of my brain.  I don’t even feel guilty about it anymore.  Snippets of what is happening outside my head make it through while I am scanning around for a good radio station, not even, just a song I don’t despise, not even, I am pressing the button out of habit.   

When I heard Kelly say she worked at a  mental hospital, I stopped, because those two words make me sit up and listen every time.  Maybe this will make sense of it, will make it real, will chip away at my shame and isolation.

Apparently a man was shot, maybe on a plane, maybe for threatening somebody, maybe for saying he had a bomb.  I didn’t listen long enough to really find out. 

I’ve met nurses like Kelly, I’ve been in their care.  They will not let you go to the bathroom, they will not let you wear shoes, they will not let you drink water, they will not they will not they will not. 

They will take blood for vague reasons.  The kids who are on meds need to have their levels checked, sure, but you are refusing, you are involuntary, so what, exactly, are they doing with so many vials from you?  The soft parts of your arms turn black and blue after just a few days, everybody’s do, but your veins collapse sooner than most, she is looking and not not finding, she is missing, her aim is bad, you joke that you would be a stunning failure at heroin addiction, she is not amused, asks you can you stop moving your leg like that and you make full on unsmiling eye contact, “No, I can’t.  You are hurting me.” 

Yes, lets be honest, you are angry.  You shouldn't even be here, this is fucking rediculous, you are fine you are better than fine you are beyond coherant and on into brilliant.  It’s not as if you are claiming to have authority over your body, though.  The male nurses are stronger than you even when not working in goups of four, even without the aid of straight jackets, padded rooms, four point restraints.

Anytime she asks, you give her your arm, make a fist, relax.  Teeth clenched with rage and fear, you hang your dignity on little acts of defiance.  Telling her it hurts, telling her a bit maliciously, true, implying she is doing her job poorly, yes, gets you a look you’ve gotten before; from her, from other nurses, from doctors, from authority figures and caregivers various and sundry.  It will frighten you that time, it will frighten you every time, but not until ten years later will you quite understand. 

If a cop puts a bullet in your brain, she will support him 100%.

Update

A voicemail was waiting for me when I got off work:  My father-in–law is hospitalized with pneumonia. 

Last night, my husband told me his dad started drinking again a month ago.  "As long as I'm drinking whisky I'm fine.   It's beer that gets me in trouble.  I'm staying the hell away from beer, don't you worry.  Whisky, though, whisky's no problem."

Thomas and I both think he's decided he'd rather die of cirrhosis than emphysema.  Can't say I blame him.   Well, yes I can, he's leaving four children and nine grandkids.  His wife, while admittedly my least favorite person on the planet, probably deserves not to watch her husband drink himself to death.  Deserves is not the word I'm looking for.  Sounds too much like something she might say.  What does any of us deserve, really?   Not to be typecast as an irredeemable asshole by our own spouse so she can enhance her wholesomer than thou self image, I might argue.  While we are talking about who deserves what, allow me to propose that having every dish one cooks for one's in laws ignored if not outright mocked is not treatment consistent with what I have reason to believe is my very low level of karmic debt.  The absence of glittery holiday sweatshirts in a wardrobe is not to be mistaken for a deficiency of hygiene or morals.

As I was saying, I think we all can agree that, drowning in a dry room, your lungs filling with whatever it is they fill with over the course of years months days while you fight harder for every breath, this is an awful way to go.  Maybe it’s only because the degenerate drunk in the family is my favorite relation by a long shot, but I’m inclined to sympathize with the desire to cop out of that fate.  And the accompanying hectoring.

Rick took the whole extended family to an indoor waterpark last weekend.  Over beers in the jungle themed bar, my husband and his two full sisters gave Jodi, their newly discovered half sibling, the lowdown on childhood in Chez Rick.  She cried.  Julie, the legitimate daughter only six months Jodi's junior, might have been a little mean, the way women in this family are, sometimes only out of habit, to other women.  Julie is vicious even to her eleven year old son's girlfriend of the same age.  You've gotta figure a bonus sibling from just bairly before Rick was married to Patti is gonna get hazed something fierce.  It doesn't help that Rick is his best self to this blank slate of an offspring.  He apologizes when he swears in front of Jodi, calls her nearly every night for no reason other than to chat.

I wasn't in attendance at the waterpark shindig, though Thomas tells me Julie’s husband wished out loud that I was there.  They do like me, in their own way.  I might not be Christian enough, I might not be trustworthy with children, but I have my charms, I am missed. 

Strange to say, I miss them, too.  I don’t like them most of the time, but I do love them, even Julie, even Patti.   It should be a comforting realization, but as is often the case, the epiphany comes too late.  My existential crises has taken it’s toll.  Barring the involvement of deities or groveling the likes of which I have heretofore been incapable, Thomas and I are getting divorced.  He’s leaving me, of all things.  If you’ve been following along, and noticed my absence of late, that’s why.  I’ve only got so much stomach for introspection just now.

Tuesday, April 12

A little tidbit from my top secret first attempt at blogging.  Keep in mind, dear reader- by yesterday I mean April 11.

I came unwound yesterday for reasons still unclear. For at least a week now, I have been building in energy, thinking it would crest into some of the productive exuberance I have known. Instead, it twisted into an implosion.  A retail smile hardened on my face while my tethers frayed and snapped.  My hearing went.  Sounds became vauge and distant like my head was underwater.  I found myself stopped in the middle of small tasks, staring at nothing, my eyes still and unfocused, drowning.

As with deja-vous or a sneeze, you kill it by calling its name. I told my coworker, a college student who shares her secrets with me, I am having a panic attack just now. She listened so generously and intently, my voice happy and calm, smiling through my terror, how surreal it must have sounded. Did I need any help? Well you see, its like when you look at a light and then close your eyes. Those spots you see? If you stare directly at them they drift and fade. I need to face this head on, to say it out loud. It usually goes away if I do that.

It stayed. It worsened. I spent that entire afternoon at work quickly building to something that spoke of bad times ahead; hard rain in the midwest from a green sky, you know a twister is coming. I feared days in bed, unable to talk or eat, shivering under blankets whatever the temperature. A few days ago, my husband and I had agreed that I would finish the taxes last night but I asked him if I could write instead, I needed to, I was freaking out. Of course honey.

I don't know how to explain what happened next. I sat down in this very uncomfortable chair. It didn't lift but I got my bearing. I sent some emails out. Please help me. This could get bad, to a dear friend who I knew would send me her love instantly, to a near stranger who I suspected would reply, to a list of women who have been there. I threw those ropes out and started putting other words down. I got replies. We care. You will be okay. Something shifted.

By the time my therapist appt came two hrs later, I was exhausted. I didn't think I could ride my bike the nine tenths of a mile. I did, though, and I finished breaking when I sat in her chair. My whole body felt so heavy. I could barely speak. When the words did come, they were slow and quiet. She pulled me through it, put it all in perspective.

I went home, sent out some more emails, suddenly feeling all the sleep I hadn't been getting this whole week. I woke up this morning surprised to find the storm had missed me. I did what I could to make it stop, then hunkered down, ready. It just never got bad. Asking for help, putting words down, it worked.

My god. I stared those spots away.

These Kids Today

I went to a poetry open mic night at my little sister’s college on Thursday. Being public about my personal writing is a new thing for me, here in this blog, and in reading aloud. To veterans of these events, it is a cliché that a different audience changes the meaning of piece. I don’t know enough not to be amazed by that fact.

The readings were quite good. Fascinating to me were the ones that were artifacts of the author's age and generation; not the same, yet not entirely different from my own. Several kids made fun of punk rock in a voice that made it obvious they were killing their idols. I don’t begrudge them this process, it is a necessary one. When a poem about a mohawked first love mocked the amount of money the author and his object spent on concerts and clothing, I pitied him for being born too late to know how much more it had been.

I loved punk rock once, too.  Oh, how my angsty heart broke when the scene ceased to be a utopia for angry freaks and geeks and became just another pretty thing stripped of meaning by commoditization. It is indeed lame to buy bondage pants at the mall and pay upwards of twenty dollars to see a band.  I happen to know what came before, though these kids are too young to remember.

At the beginning of my adolescence, when my sister and the abovementioned poet were not yet out of elementary school, I went to shows with the same hundred and fifty kids twice a week: in warehouses, in fire halls, sometimes in somebody’s parent’s basement or a county park. The bands were local high school students, the organizers the same. We gave voice to our age appropriate alienation with violent dancing, flailing, bouncing. Those rare times we held an all ages show at the local club, always weeknights so as not to interfere with the real music, you could jump off the stage and be caught by everyone there, could float above a crowd of bodies, anonymous hands pushing you in no direction, in every direction, until several somebodies helped you down. To be one of those anonymous hands was to find that a human being becomes weightless when held up by dozens of others. The magazines called it slam dancing, and I suppose it did look angry, but I was there. I know we kept our fists down or above our heads, never at person punching height. I know when somebody fell, the crowd backed up and made space and offered hands. I know what honest intimacy was born jumping and yelling in those cramped dark spots, staticy volume overwhelming our ears, pulsing directly into our bodies through the floor. Our souls broke open. We were not alone.

Among my five dear riot grrls, it was a given that each of us would have died for any of the others. We shoplifted makeup together: blue green black eyeliner lipstick nailpolish. That whole circle learned to smoke and drink on the bridge behind Alice’s house, seduced guys at the mall who we imagined believed the lies we told them about out ages. Lovely bright colors were slathered on each other’s faces, nails and, most importantly, our hair, in well planned ritual fashion. Safety pins pushed into our flesh in lieu of the sterile piercing we were not allowed. The secrecy of it all only enhanced the magic. It was such glorious trouble to turn our heads the color of grass or of the sky, to have metal bits in our skin. Long notes and poems full of love and rage and fear passed urgently between us. We determined to conquer the pain with art. I haven't known a tribe like that since. Threats came from every direction; boys and adults might hurt us anytime, but the five of us were each other’s spines.

Later, in college, I would stumble across the phrase Dionysian ecstasy while reading Nietsche and be taken back, would have a brainy way to talk about it, but by that time it had been long gone for several years.

Maybe some good came out of my harbor in a storm becoming so popular it turned into a place I could no longer love. Maybe spreading the subculture’s values was worth diluting the opportunity to experience them. Lost, though, was the emphasis on process over product, how craftsmanship was once totally out of the equation. DIY was an acronym not about home repair for us, but about creating a community where the act of making raw clumsy art was recognized to be more nourishing than consuming something perfectly polished. When we poured unlikely colors through our tresses, we belonged to ourselves; we redefined beauty on our own terms. Fundamentally, it never was about the piercings or the hair or the clothes, nor the sex and drugs; it wasn’t even about the music. We could have been writing code or planting gardens instead of playing songs; later, some of us were. The important thing was to find our voices, to do it together, to build something all our own.

Everybody supposes the era of their adolescence was the best one in which to be a teenager, but I look at kids only a few years younger than me, and I am grateful to have known what they can only imagine.

Strangers

When I visited my sister the weekend before last, she pointed out a woman and child sitting at the front of the bus into town.

“Those two ride the morning bus with me everyday.   I love to make up stories about them.  The mom is always studying, I think she adopted the child and is trying to learn to speak her language.  See, look, I must be right, the book even has characters on it. I bet she’s studying Chinese.”

The two of then likely would have stood out even if my sister had not informed me of the secret life they live in her head.  This being a university town, every bus rider was between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two but the child, the woman, and technically, myself, though I can pass.  The child, an Asian girl of perhaps seven, looked out the window in obviously self made and very fabulous Halloween costume which may have transformed her into anything from a princess to a sparkly supernatural being, and the woman, thin and wiry, hair streaked with grey, bent over her textbook, seemingly oblivious to the kid at her side.

I make up stories about the strangers I see regularly, too. My sister and I haven't lived to together since she was nine.  Now, as young adults, our shared eccentricities are precious gifts each time I stumble on one.  To suddenly discover this amazing young person who came to many of the same conclusions as I, but from a vastly different path, almost makes up for being absent from her youth. 

At the public library where I do most of my writing, there is an elderly man, maybe in his seventies or eighties, who comes everyday to spend hours on the Internet.  He is dressed up, the way people from that generation insist on being whenever they appear in public: clothes impeccable and dignified without being fancy, shoes shined, shirt pressed.  He brings a briefcase and a newspaper. Times when I have had occasion to eyeball his screen, it appears he is managing a financial portfolio, maybe day trading.  Sometimes he reads the newspaper while sitting in the uncomfortable wooden chair, not touching the keyboard or seeming to glance at the screen for long stretches.

The other day, I came in to sit at the typer all morning before a late shift, and his usual spot sat empty.  Around my second hour of email checking and blog perusing, a bit of worry began to nag at the corners of my mind.  I waited as long as I possibly could, wasting time, hoping he would show before I needed to get to work.  There came a moment when I had to choose between assuaging my curious concern, and fulfilling my duties as an employee.  With a heavy heart I chose the last, put on my coat and headed out the door. 

We crossed paths there.  Eyes fixed ahead and oblivious, as always, to other sentient beings, he did not see the relief wash over my face.

Not That Crazy

Yesterday at work we had an especially belligerent customer.  I found out later they call her the hot chocolate lady, after the only order she ever places.  She was muttering angrily under her breath as she came in, “Rediculous...I can’t believe it...”  When I asked her what was wrong, making conversation as I am wont to do when we are slow, you should have seen the hateful look she gave me.  It is my habit, especially in a retail setting, to turn the full force of my charm on people who do not respond sufficiently to the initial dosage.  Do you really think yourself capable of plumbing the depths of my resilience?  Please, you don't have it in you to more than scratch the surface.  Anything you care to dish out will be returned with the most tooth aching sugary sweetness, see if it isn't.  Bring it, your misery vs my hard won exuberance, we’ll see who breaks first.

Eyes contacting, my face aglow with a custom blend of joy and empathy, I gave her my best smile with her change.  Working retail in Texas, where social niceties are a sacred pact, I learned to make this face and mean it.  My happiness is highly contagious, but she was immune, replied with mockery, a sarcastic grimace thrown back like she was offended that I should presume to attempt cheering her.  She watched the kid making her drink like a hawk, hassled him about whether the spoon he used for separating the foam from the milk was clean enough.

I was bothered a little by the interaction.  When someone is an asshole for no reason, though, I am pretty good at saying to myself, “Wow, she must be in some serious pain for that kind of human contact to seem reasonable.”  Let’s be honest, it’s not like I haven't been in such pain myself.

The two managers on duty commenced discussing the woman as soon as she left.  (Within earshot of the other customers, who now know the employees occasionally engage in mean spirited gossip about one of their number.)

“She is insane.”

“Seriously.  Something is wrong with her.  She keeps applying here over and over, always asks me what my name is.  Right, like we want her working here.”

“But, I mean, I wonder what her problem is.”

“She’s a bitch, that’s her problem.”

“No, I mean, I wonder what her diagnosis is.  Y’know, like, what officially is wrong with her.”

“I bet she doesn’t have a name for it.  Like, she’s not schizo or multiple personality or whatever.  She doesn’t, y’know, seem insane enough to where she would really need drugs or something.  I mean, she’s not *that* crazy.”

Meanwhile a two time veteran of the loony bin listened from the register, trying to decide whether to be annoyed at their lack of professionalism or extremely amused by their ignorance.  Over the course of the conversation, I settled on the latter.  Ladies, you have no idea.  Nutcases lurk among you.

Work

The good news alluded to elsewhere: beginning last Tuesday, I am employed, full time.   As an added bonus, my job does not make me fear for my emotional health.   Who knew I could be so excited about making coffee for a vaguely cultish high end chain, the very face of yuppified globalization?   Fifteen year old me would be ashamed.

I have this problem which sometimes ends up being an advantage:  I am unable to emotionally divest myself from anything.   When I've worked retail before, I was forever infuriated by my supervisor's short sighted, lackadaisical attitude about the importance of meeting our customers' craft supply needs with sufficient gusto.   So, it will be nice to work for a company which takes the idea of quality seriously, both in terms of the product it delivers and it's dealings with customers and "partners", as we employees are known. 

Menial tasks are some of the most satisfying paid labor I have ever done.  I worked at a factory for a year and adored it, came home every night physically drained, sure, but singing and bubbly.  Friends my age, especially the clever ones who have recently graduated from college, are struggling now to figure out their employment situation.  Not that I'm not struggling, god knows I can't stay in one place for very long, but I've been happy doing lots of different types of work, is it arrogant to think I know something they don't? 

I wrote a sentence of which I was particularly proud some weeks back:  Circumstances have exhausted their power to degrade me.  We are expected to construct an identity from our employment, and when you have been told your whole life how smart you are, when you know you are smart, when you have the degree, even, you want a job title that impresses people as much as the sentence: I went to college at fifteen.  My first thought on being involuntarily institutionalized all those years ago was, "Well, now I'll never be President."   I made peace then with the idea that all my credit in the straight world was squandered, and I haven't gotten addicted to respect since.  It's not low self esteem so much as a peace inside me I wish I could bottle and distribute.  You really don't need those people to approve, it really doesn't matter whether acquaintances are impressed.  A job, your interactions with strangers, your parent's support or lack thereof, authority figure's opinions: none of these has the power to give or take away dignity.  You have it in your spine or you don't.

Tune Up

On Monday I dropped my bike off for an extensive tune up I can't afford.  It'll end up costing me the equivilant of six tanks of gas, but unfortunate noises coming out of automobiles are always significantly more costly to remedy than those which issue forth from bicycles; best to preserve the car's health for something more important than these measly five mile trips about town.  My bike tires are starting to crack, and the snow we will be having in not so long is really managed best with knobbier ones, anyway; might as well true the wheels and clean the chain while they're at it.  With minimal friction, I will make extensive use of my balaklava and snow pants this winter, good little blood for oil opposer that I am.

The mechanic bore a startling resemblance to Thomas.  It’s not that he looked like him so much as carried himself the same way.   Must be a type: wrench with an art degree.  Marriage to a proffesional means you never have to think about maintaining your own bike.   For five years I haven't pumped up my tires or changed a single flat.  Pffft: and I call myself a feminist.

It was the first time in five years, only the third time in my life, that I walked into a shop through the front door like any old customer, and had to pay, actually pay money.   I let him talk me into expensive tires because that's what they had in stock and I didn't feel like being without a bike the extra day it would take them to get something cheaper from the other location.  Thomas would have been annoyed that I wasn't willing to wait for a better deal.

When I was ninteen, I brought my bicycle in for a tune up at Thomas’s shop.  How romantic: I even kept the claim slip in my wallet for years afterwards.   It resides safely in a photo album now.  At the time I was riding a venerable old Shwinn named Esmerelda, all shiny fenders and curved handlebars.   To those bikies for whom the sport is just another excuse for conspicuous consumerism, such a ride is laughable.  Ah, but once you’ve lived with bike messengers who tear through Philly on Frankenstiens built from garage sale cast offs and dumpster dived parts, purchased speed fails utterly to impress. 

Thomas cooed over my bike, how pretty she was.  He knew a gem when he saw her.  We both prefer objects with history, celebrating underappreciated beauty, defying greed by living simply.  Translatoin: we are cheap; he even more than I.

For a woman with serious badass credentials, I fall in obsessive debilitating love with embarassing ease.  Since I agonise over every little crush or fling much longer than the algorithms in Cosmo reccomend, I always figured I’d be a natural at forever.  Au contaire, dear reader.  Imagine my shock: this marriage thing is Hard.  Seriously.  Hard.  There are so many compromises, so many little things on which to find middle ground.  Turns out, I wasn’t done being selfish.  Sure, sure, I got married too young, that should have been obvious.  Yes, thank you, it is apparent to me at long last.  So, now what...

We are making it up as we go.  He gives me so much freedom it raises our families eyebrows.  This fall, at my insistance, we don’t live in the same city; not even the same coast.  So are you getting divorced?  No, no.  He’s finishing his novel, I’m staying with friends.  I need to be twenty-four now so I don’t freak the hell out over my lost youth in ten, fifteen years.

He’s the sort of guy 21st century strieght women dream of: sesitive, arty, smart, good with kids and pets, able to talk about his feelings, hilarious when the situation requires, but macho, a nice body, an athlete, able to fix stuff or scare off bad guys if need be.  (Not that bad guys aren’t scared of me.  I mean, they are.  I’m just saying.)  If I made a list, and for the sake of full disclosure I should tell you that I did, he meets or exceeds every criterion. 

In theory.

I find myself wondering sometimes if I love him enough, if I love him the right way.  If I love him.  How sickening to see it sitting there in type like that.  What the hell is wrong with me?  There’s that list with all the items crossed off, remember?  Missing now and always in my feelings for him, though, is an edge, a burnign clarity that I’ve caught glimpses of before.  I’d managed to convince myself it was not nessesary or real, just an illusory high of a greedy bipolar mind.  Lately I’m not so sure again.

There are paths I would have taken if I weren’t marrried.  One in particular.  Three years ago I got into Antioch College with a big merit scholarship but didn’t attend because Thomas thought we couldn’t handle the debt.  He never asked me to decline, but complained and worried so much about the money that I looked into the future and saw more resentment between us than it seemed we could weather.  Other chances that I thought for sure would come through instead collapsed in on themselves.  A cold calculation creeps into my mind these days when my defenses against it are down: is what I’m given worth more than what I sacrifice?

We have what I thought I always wanted, and yet, here I am, the bad spouse, thinking about giving it all up.   I bought myself those tires precicely because I knew it would piss him off.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Monday is the last day of sukkot.  Our household of two secular Jews and one goy has been shokling it up all week.  This is the second time my gracious hosts are celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, and I concur with them that it is the best holiday the world has ever seen.

Last weekend we built a (stunning, if you will permit me to brag) sukkah at the edge of the woods, covered in leaves, ornamental squashes hung above the table like a chandelier, apples snuggled nicely underneath in a copper bowl.  At night we eat our meals inside it by candlelight.  We say prayers the words to which fall ever less clumsily from my tongue.  Each of us shakes the four species in every direction at some point during the meal, with increasing comfort, with increasing seriousness.  The reading Abby has been doing suggests inviting a different patriarch to the meal every night, discussing their ideas over dinner after having pondered their lives over the course of the day.  We, being both rebellious and pretentious, have invited Esther, Emma Goldman, David Ben Gurion and our grandmothers so far.  Next year we plan to conduct more research, really polish this part of the celebration, maybe print up some recommended reading.  My friends and I linger outdoors, letting the discussion take us where it will while the stars and moon peek through the leaves above.  We are commanded to enjoy ourselves.

I loved going to church when I was little.  Our Lutheran congregation worshiped in a venerable old building, chock full of gilded curlicues.  I liked how dressed up everybody got, the seriousness and formality.  Normal children found it stifling, but I felt special and magical, saying the same nonsense words with a few hundred strangers every week.

I miss church quite a bit, though as I have explained elsewhere, I miss god not one iota.  We went our separate ways amiably enough.  Intellectually, I can get behind the concept of the god described by Quakers.  Most of what the UU’s say makes sense as well.  To the extent that a church is a group of people building community together, I could be comfortable in either of those denominations.

Except that their rituals do nothing for me.

The few Catholic services I’ve attended have all resonated well.  As a teenager, I was pretty seriously into goddess worship.  Incense and candles, that’s what I’m looking for in a religious service.

The thing that I love about Judaism is this perfect balance of emotionally nourishing ritual and a rigorous intellectual tradition.  You are allowed, even encouraged, to question the basic tenants of the faith.  Doing so does not preclude you from shokling the lulav and etrog, from wishing with all of your heart for the plants of the world to grow well this year.  You can say the prayers and partake of the meal while a nagging doubt dances around the ideas without having to despise yourself as a hypocrite.  The ceremonies are for the people who do them, not for the god who may or may not be watching.  Even I, with no claim on this history or community, can feel myself becoming profoundly bonded to a line of worshippers stretching back through known time, to all life on this planet, to the people whose faces I see every day.