The Quiet Room

In the quiet room there is the sound of the oxygen pump and Mark mistakes it for the pattern of Eddy's breathing and worries it is slowing down. We stand around Eddy's bed and pet him, his chest and legs, and his head. Occasionally Mark pets his cheek. At first we don't know what to say and the nurses are there swabbing out his mouth and turning him in the bed and then realizing they need to change his gown that is wet with sweat they ask us to step out and we do. In the common area there is a dog lingering between the water dispenser and an open office and a man comes out and goes in and the dog changes from bored to attentive and then back to bored. People wheel by in wheelchairs wearing socks with grippy pads. Some people sit listening to music, some people just stare. A woman I saw crying at one of the many dining tables one day is today folding clothes, over and over. We go back into the quiet room and continue our petting and stroking and quiet weeping. We talk over Eddy and to Eddy and around Eddy and eventually we put on music and we all sit down and forget about Eddy and then we take turns looking over at him. From where I am sitting I can see his pulse in his neck expanding and contracting against the white white pillow. The lights are low in the quiet room and the decor makes it seem like you are in a cottage at the beach, in Greece. If you were on morphine this would all be believable. You could easily tune out the pumping sound of the oxygen and the sound of the fan and all the sounds coming from the front desk of this vast building filled with other afflicted humans who can no longer care for themselves. You could focus instead on the voices of the people you loved most in this world even if you had no ability to understand what anyone was saying, the pumping sound might register as waves lapping on a distant shore. No one asks questions about how long it will be until we arrive at the place we are all going and the day passes and we come and go from the quiet room, and later in the evening after we have all gone home, Eddy dies. And that is where we are now. This is the day that we knew was coming but we didn't know how and we didn't know when and yet here we are doing exactly what we knew we would need to do.

Change in Venue

Cross section of Russian nesting dolls, an apt illustration of my routine within a routine

I am naturally restless. I believe it's got something to do with my existentialist beliefs. On one hand my routine is what keeps me together, on the other hand the sameness sometimes feels like a noose around my neck. Where this feeling manifests itself the most is with teeth brushing. I am pretty committed to excellent oral hygiene but occasionally at bedtime I just don't have it in me to perform this small meaningless task. I see myself before the mirror growing old, brushing my teeth each night getting closer to death. It's heavy. But like everything in life there are dichotomies and dualities and the routines that horrify me at times are also enjoyable and keep me on the straight and narrow. "Off the streets, and out of the river," as my father says.

Mark comes to my place at the weekends and generally retires to his home north of the border on Mondays, at the latest Tuesday. This week was a little different and of course it got me thinking about this routine. Whilst out retrieving a pizza for us on Tuesday his car refused to start and so set into motion a particular chain of events. His Wednesday radio show at CITR in Vancouver was canceled and the whole week was altered.

I need to be delicate here in how I describe this because I would not want anyone to infer that I do not enjoy more than life itself being with my partner. I did however recognize this week how much I enjoy the time I spend completely alone at home during the week. Now granted I did consult my calendar and noted that I was in a particular phase of my menstrual cycle, irrational crankiness abounding. It was fun having Mark there on Wednesday, it was novel. We went to a friends house for a little birthday party. It's always nice to go out as a couple/family. Thursday found Mark replacing the baseboards in a few spots in the house that never had them, very helpful. I focused on work and stayed close to my office, and took a walk in the rain to try and calm my anxiety about additional cooking duties and the general chaos two more people in the small house generate. Friday came and we were all still together. I felt guilty about wanting to be alone in my routine and it made me realize just how lucky we both are that we have this amazing flexibility in our relationship.

Friday afternoon we packed up our stuff, tidied the house and set out north. Driving out of my driveway I felt relaxed and excited to be going somewhere else, a change of scene, a change in latitude albeit very small is comforting to me. Now I just have to work on my little control issues around the house. My mother had this too, she feared chaos and worked hard to keep it all under control. I do it too and it can be a lot of work and really hard on the people around me. I need the structure of the big routine and the small sub-routines with the addition of the occasional anomaly in the form of a side-trip away or surprise house-guests. The tooth-brushing still has to be done but it feels less desperate when done in different bathrooms, in different countries.

No Problem

It was my birthday on Saturday. It was a sunny day and I listened to the Beatles, Good Day Sunshine, it was nice. A friend called to extend to me some birthday wishes and we talked for a bit and then she asked about my feelings around my birthday. I told her I felt okay, and I do. I have never been a person who needed a lot of recognition around my birthday. Certainly I like a little and I seem to get it. This year was no exception. There was some build up, some plans for fun and a meal, some anticipation around gifts. I had been working a bit feverishly up until my birthday and I had to take care of some details on my birthday and then I had just had to work like a demon the next day. That was okay. There was one strange little thing that happened though. A few days before my birthday I got thinking about my mother and started to feel pretty sad. I miss her a lot and somehow the whole birthday thing feels a bit lonely without a call from her. There is nothing to do about it. I had a little weep away from everyone who might hear me and went on with my day. Pearl baked me a cake and neighbors came over for drinks and I made a nice dinner for us.

Of course it is a strange business getting older. You gain things and lose things as time marches on pulling us along with it. I did what I could to stay young. I started school early so I was younger than my classmates, I dated older men so that I was always younger by contrast but these days things seem to be evening out. Mark is only a year older than me and for the first time in my life most of my friends are about my age. I have some younger people in my life too and I enjoy being able to offer words of advice based on longer experience. I don't hate my body, in fact I think I look pretty good for my age. I am comfortable with where I am in my life and who I am as a 46 year old woman. So to answer that question again, I have no trouble with my birthday, with the mechanics of it at any rate. I am looking forward to the future but I do miss the past a little as well.

In the Flow

There is a natural ebb and flow to things. In work and in life things seems to flow easily if you let them. Worry does not seem to affect the flow except to distract you from recognizing it as it happens. Opportunities for work and advancement are everywhere but they seem hidden when you are looking for them directly. It seems that when you are genuinely in the flow that is when you become aware of the opportunities you need to act on. Because the universe is always watching, I choose to keep my head down and focus on what is in front me while listening with my ears and seeing peripherally what is shifting around me. I leave expectation alone and feed intent. I enjoy the feeling of flow from my head through my hands, pushing and pulling me along. The year is flowing down into the narrow passage of the transition to the new year, where the flow dissipates into a trickle only to burst forth on the other side. There is never any time to stop and fully restock your supplies to continue in the flow, you just keep moving, looking down while looking ahead, skimming along, merrily merrily.