Held in place

For What Binds Us

by Jane Hirshfield

There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down—
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest—

And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.



I seem to be held by these forces.  The scar tissue that stitched Gil's and my lives together ties me to old ways of caregiviing, managing, indulging. Habits, inertia,  I'm having a hard time changing these patterns, for good or for ill. The bond I feel with the farm, family, friends keeps me rooted and nourished , it sustains me.  And held to the way I've been.

I don't know what is next, but I feel more as though the decision has been made and no one has informed me.  I am listening for the urge for something more and to what the forces are, which hold me to this past, (I don't want to be dismissive; this "past" may well be the rest of my life).  If I can't sense and then name what  keeps me so rooted, how will I ever become aware of what new lives I may have yet in this lifetime, and be able to let go and step into them???

Numb and Crabby

So much for the anniversary of his death being an emotional Camile like weep fest.   For the last couple of days I've been feeling kind of numb, going for the naps and ice cream  and generally irritable at family, friends and foes.    I get off on missing him and crying but, you know, I've done a lot of that this year .  Time to move on to feeling other feelings, like anger.   I was surprised when I riffed on that in the last post.  There was a lot about the years from the brain tumor on that was really hard and he could be quite self centered and passive.  And I was never Saint Kathleen; I wasn't always fun to be around.   Grieving  doesn't change the reality of our basic messy humanness.  And crabby when it's upgraded to anger can be energizing.  Which I could use.  I'm sick of wallowing; time to clear brush and move chickens.  And I'm pissed he's not here to help.

Holy Week

A year ago, this was the week before Gil died.  Last week was our 25th wedding anniversary.  Oddly intense little mileage markers, they call out for some ritualistic processing (recovering Catholic that I am).   I went back to Samba on our anniversary, the Brazilian ode to meat restaurant that we went to last year, and I'm planning the ashes/tree planting we'll be doing with Chris and Miya and (ta da!) Isaac et al in a month.
And then there's   now.
Last year this was three days before he died.  I think it was finally starting to sink in that maybe he wasn't going to be able to snatch disaster from the maw of death as he'd done  soo many times before.  Hard to believe.  I think this was the day that I climbed into the hospital bed and spooned with him.  For some reason he needed to be on his side, it was such an invitation to snuggle!  I think I remember him responding, maybe even saying "good".  Mostly I was on the cot they'd made up for me right next to his bed, I could reach out and touch him.
I think this was the day when we could no longer get Gil to swallow his pills. These were ones which couldn't be given by IV but which could have fairly immediate negative impact on how he felt.     I suggested "pilling the cat",  mixing the ground pills in applesauce and squirting it into his cheek.  It worked in the morning and then in the evening he spit it into my face.  
I think he was angry because he felt belittled, and bossed.   I hadn't explained to him why these meds were necessary, I hadn't asked him to let us do it,  I didn't treat him as though he were still there.  Though he seemed mostly unconscious I think he could still hear us.
And I was angry. I was tired of being responsible for everything. Angry that he was fading these last years and I felt chose  TV and computer games, golf and billiards over me.  But mostly I was angry that I was in this position where looking out for his well being left me feeling like a bossy bully.
I wish I'd had the compassion to think of a more respectful way to help him, and
I was doing the best I knew to do; I feel no guilt.
There was a turning point when the magical thinking part of me started to realize,  he was too far gone even for a miracle like  in February, with the gurgling and finally getting the morphine as a steady drip loosing the pain and consciousness.  Those last two days I was in the numb space where it started to dawn on me, something momentous was about to happen and dramatically alter the rest of my life.  Gil was disappearing and I couldn't follow him.    How extremely odd.

The end of the shampoo and the death of orchids

I've woken twice in the middle of the night this last week or two, and found that I was crying.  No memory of a dream, just sadness and longing.  We're coming to the end of the year, the animal of my body remembers this quality of light or phase of the moon; a year ago he was alive and we were on the slippery slope.

This is not a pain I'm seeking to end, it doesn't have fear and despair to make it unbearable.  It fels a little like labor pains, surprisingly intense sometimes, but with a sense of health and rightness about it.  I am giving birth to myself and Gil's death is guiding me.               

I revisit details of this moment, that decision and though through hind sight I understand this or wish that, I don't regret with clenched teeth "oh, if only we'd....".  We did what we did, it's not about perfection.  I realize now that perhaps we hung on longer, tried more chemos at the end because we were part of a team with Dr Callander and she wasn't ready to give up.  She said we could always stop but she still had hope of "knocking it out of the ball park"  and so we kept playing.    Perhaps a useful insight for someone else but not a source of angst.  Gil's death was what it was and we had far more than our share of miracles and joy in that last month or so.  Who's to say we "should of" anything, but breathe as long as we could.

I just used the last bottle of shampoo that Gil bought.   He loved to be well supplied.  So when he'd get down say 3/4 of the bottle, he'd get another (often a large Costco one) but then would forget and at 4/5 mark,  buy another.  He once bought 3 replacement bottles before the original was used up.  He did this with toothpaste, and paper products too.  It drove me nuts! as things spilled out of storage!

I have used the last drop of the last bottle he bought.  Now I can decide what kind of shampoo I want.

Our 25th anniversary is at the end of this month.  We used to get orchids (often cheap Home Depot ones) but I often got them to rebloom for several years.  The last of our orchids has died.  I'm going to buy a beautiful one to mark this year and get some expert advise on helping it flourish.

We're entering the sweet spot time of a year ago when we got him his billiard table and other joys.   I miss him intensely at times and there are events or new skills (mine) that I know he would delight in and it hurts that he's not here to appreciate them.  

But  I  am;   I'm here in a way that I've never been before, surrounded by loving friends and family, but free of responsibility for anyone else's well being besides my own.  

Alone

I've been reading the blog from a year ago.  That was such an intense time, I remember feeling it, living it but  it's light years away from now.  I still cry, often from some song and wish he were here to enjoy this or that, but now is a time for me to be alone, and it's good.  I love being alone in my house with nothing urgent to do, I love it! I'm discovering my own rhythms, of sleep or eating, listening to the hum and noticing the way the wind blows, birds fly, the moon fills up it's bowl and then drips it slowly away.
I'm spending a lot of time on deferred maintenance of my body and soul, babysitting, taking care of the house and farm.  These activities eat time, which makes my alone time even more delectable.  I feel the echos of who I am, my likes and desires, compulsions and ruminations, those echos allow me to hear myself in a way that I couldn't when I was focused on my children or spouse.  I needed to be alone to wake up to me.
I feel no rush to dive into anything.  I'll be doing a little more with the garden and meat raising this year, but mostly as support services.  I'm doing a trip out to California to visit David and get a sense of his next phase of life.  Chiris and Miya and baby Miller are coming here sometime in late April as we bury Gil's ashes and plant a tree.  My sibs and I are gathering out in Maine at the end of August to reflect on my dad's life and then I'll spend some time at Pipers Nest, but other than that I'm hoping to just be here, now, alone.
If I listen and am patient, I'll hear what's next.

Vertigo

Yes, really.
I woke up yesterday morn and the room kept spinning.  Walking to the bathroom made me seasick.  It took many naps, and phone calls, and time, before I figured out what was up and found my feet again.  It was a day pulled out of space and time.
But good.
I've come to appreciate how my body takes metaphors literally.   My pseudo heart attack, showing me again my broken heart;  my vertigo, how dizzy and mind bending all these changes in identity are to me.
I am being stripped down to some primal version of myself as the activities I've used my breath and body for are no longer possible or what I want.
"I am not who I was, though some principle  of being survives from which I struggle not to stray"
I remember reading the "Little House" books and wanting to be a self sufficient pioneer; that's what has driven me to become good at "putting by" my garden and meat raising.  It's become fashionable now, but contrarian that I am, that makes me want to move on, or do it in a way which uses up less of me.
I remember listening to Joan Biaz records when I was 12, and deciding that that's what I wanted to look like, be.  And so the beatnik version of me was born, though I lacked the olive skin and my hair, even ironed would never hang straight.   I still have trouble spending money on clothes or other appearance driven womanly maintenance activities, though I am getting remedial fashion assistance and education.
I remember all the turn of the century kids books I used to read which fostered my sense of responsibility for family, family, family.  I have an idea of family as my root stock which has driven a lot of my choices, and perhaps that's been the deepest part of my identity up to now.

Identity vertigo, that's what is going on with me.  I sometimes feel friends or family respond to me as though I am someone else at essence than who I feel myself to be. They may have been distracted by some of my identity driven behaviors and think because I do these things, that must be who I am.  And isn't it?  How can I be other than what I've done and continue to do; habits die hard?  
But I feel like I am more than that.
What is the star I'm following now, freed of work, husband, young children??    Ir seems like I'm thirteen instead of sixty three, and that I'm looking for new Identity clothes to try on.  I need a lot of solitude, silence  and stillness to hear what that small voice in me is suggesting I try.   Of course I'm dizzy, I've lost the orientation of my old horizons, as I "voluntary free fall" into the future.
"I am not done with my changes"

January 8th

Gil died 9 months ago; it feels like 9 years.  I have traveled so much new territory, so many miles, I can barely remember so long ago.
But also,
It was a year ago that we started down the slippery slope, and it feels like yesterday. Gil spent the weekend with the Kavanaughs while Adam and I journeyed to Ohio to visit David.  When we got back I sensed that something was wrong, he was weak, confused, my alarms went off. When we went to the hospital, his platelets were out of wack, and his myeloma was soaring.
In hindsight, his myeloma had mutated sometime in late December and was becoming an out of control, burn the house down kind of fire.  I remember that all so familiarly; it was the world I lived in, and it changed so abruptly 9 months ago.
I am reassured when I still tear up easily with this and that memory.  I have not become cold and callused but I am shifting Universes.  I was living in a world of Doctors and numbers, intuitions and crises.  I did my garden and turkeys as though it were still my life, but increasingly over the years, I was not present, to myself or anyone else.  Oh I had insights, and awareness of this and that but to the deeper current of my life, I was not tuned in.
I feel like I'm waking up now, like a person after a train wreak, who lost an arm or leg, who realizes that they are still alive, and that the rest of their life will be radically different.  The Universe has been swatting me upside the head, with crisis after crisis.  All at first looked like potential disaster, all were, with some $ and effort, manageable.  What have I to fear of flooded basements or dead vehicles? The current of my life is pulling me.  Where, I have no idea, but I'm learning how to move a little within it.   And trust.      I feel the reality, Death IS.  And equally, while I'm still alive,   BE ALIVE.