3 April 2014

Thursday

Words have always fascinated me. From the line and form of typography to the mental imagery they produce. Even Chinese calligraphy with its (to me, at least) undecipherable meanings draws me in, insisting that I pay more attention to the lines that sweep, cross, stack up, and seem to be a collection of fallen jackstraws. The concepts that words carry are even more mysterious than the fact that words can evoke images. Take, for example, Monet's painting The Magpie. The image portrayed on the canvas is a winter scene, winter bare trees with houses behind, a stone wall and a gate, a heavy coat of snow on everything, a black birdlike figure perched on the gate. Is it a Raven? The title tells us its a Magpie. The mood changes with just that small bit of information from the title.

Depending on how I feel going into seeing the image, the winter scene could be viewed as stark, a scene of devastation with the bare trees and all the snow covering everything, the bird creature could be a raven overlooking a world of death and suffocation. Have you ever seen a Magpie? They hop around in a comical fashion when not flying, looking for something that interests them, which they often pick up to fly off with. The thieving Magpie.

Many people see that winter scene and immediately think that they don't like winter. The shoveling of snow, driving in the stuff, life is a mess. Look again at the painting, there are no sidewalks nor driveways. There aren't even any roads, no cars, no driving, it was painted before all these things had been invented. They are not needed in this rural scene. It portrays a slice of life in a much different time and circumstance. Magpies are clever birds that show no fear and can be quite entertaining in the mountains at a ski resort pick nick table trying to make off with a small portion of your lunch. With this in mind the whole feeling of the painting changes.

I realize that I have the opportunity to interpret what the painting can bring forth in me. I have the choice in how I see the scene. The action is in me, not determined by outside factors. The outside may give seemingly adverse conditions, but I get to determine how to respond.

Back to words for a moment. Sometimes words can be a blueprint, a route to get somewhere, a reflection of having been somewhere, maybe how to get back to the same place again. One of my favorite word based memories is a Rumi poem:

Beyond wrong doing and right doing,

there is a field,

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

You, me, even the words each other have no meaning.

Being a part of everything. No separation, no valuing, no rank ordering. Reminds me of William Blake's Augeries of Innocence:

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

How many times have I stood transfixed, caught unsuspecting that anything would happen, standing dumbly unable to speak as no words were sufficient, gazing at a flower – essentially lost to this world? Its easy. If you try to make it happen, it won't occur. These things don't work that way. They come upon you without fanfare or effort. Moments of Grace. It can be a sound that stands out, the gleam in someone's eye, the way the light catches the merest detail and creates a highlight that won't let you go. There is no causing it to happen, you must be aware to climb aboard when the occasion arises. And be willing to be carried off. That eternal moment is forever here, just waiting to take you away, if you can drop everything and just be with it.

How many are willing to do that? To drop the agenda, relinquish the fear of ridicule, to set aside thinking, and just notice the world waiting to take you away. It is rare and when we find ourselves thusly caught, there are others wanting to know what we are doing. Standing there doing nothing with a gleam in your eye invites questions. “What are you doing?”, “Penny for your thoughts.” or even “Hello”.

For a species that thrives on being in contact with another, we can sure make it hard on one another. My dogs were great. They were always glad to see me, but made no demands. I could feel right at home in the woods or with the dogs, but things always got hinky when people were introduced into the mix. “Where have you been?”, “How long are we going to be gone.”, “What if it rains?” The briefest of answers come to mind. Gone, for a while, we get wet. Please be quiet, lets have an experience. If I think, just to answer you, I am stuck here where you are.

Now the woods is unavailable to me, someone always thinks they are responsible for me. This creates a list of perpetual Can't Do Activities that restrict me “for my safety”, but it is really for litigation purposes, the dogs have died, everyone seems to think that the interaction between people is word driven. I have had enough of this kind of being taken care of. I would like it to stop being so determined to make me be as others think I should be.

I will lay back with the headphones on and with eyes closed recall watching the coals glowing in the wood stove on a winter evening. That should be timeless in its own right.

4 April 2014

Friday afternoon

We accomplished a shower today, myself and a CENA new to me, she works mostly on the second floor (many elderly and dementia residents). Unlike other CENAs who have worked with me from the second floor she could work with me instead of on me, she could listen to how it was best to effect the next move so it could be easier on both of us. After a week being way to close to my own body, it was nice to have some water running over my body and a scrub with a wash cloth.

I discovered where one of my favorite DVDs got put away. I watched it this afternoon. I don't have many DVDs with me here, I was very particular about buying them when I lived at home. Most movies have too thin of a plot line to watch more than once. They seem to be more of a sensational satisfaction device rather than telling a good story.I guess Hollywood has fingured how shallow the public can be and get away with producing low quality material. The DVD today was about Andy Goldsworthy, the artist, and his work. Although it is a bout seeing some of his work in progress and some finished pieces. It is no usual documentary or story. I have always enjoyed seeing it again and again.

I found myself remembering one other DVD that I bought, one which never survived my youngest brother's style of clearing out my home for sale. He either threw it out or gave it to the auctioneer to dispose of. Amazon lists it for sale at eight dollars, I may buy myself another one. I first heard of this movie when a friend at school mentioned to me that one scene in the movie reminded her of me. In the movie young Beethoven flees out a window and down a down spout to escape another return and an another inevitable beating a the hands of his drunken father. He runs to a nearby pond where he doffs his clothing and floats face up in the water watching the stars. In that one scene you can see a method self-solace and a way to leave the pettiness of living among people who can't see beauty. Its like returning to the higher self.

In a way I could see how that scene reminded my classmate of me. I don't sustain beatings from a drunken father. But I always have found solace in nature. Like the line from Linus in the peanuts comic strip, holding his blanket to the side of his head he states that he loves humanity, its people he can't stand. I can see that, the potential of the group soon fritters away when you get down to the individual level. What rises up to fill the void is often petty, small minded, egoistic, self interest dominated. It is not very becoming or the stuff relationships can be built on.

People are funny with relationships. I once read in my undergraduate education that more times than not the mutual friends of a couple, after they divorce, tend to shun the male and gather about the female. Its some sort of unspoken taboo to be seen fraternizing with the male, but not so for the female. I couldn't believe it when I read that. I thought, “No way” they must not have been that good at being friends. When my divorce happened, after thirty years of marriage, the friends disappeared overnight. Poof! I was an instant pariah. I couldn't figure what I had done wrong. The separation was amicable, even though I didn't agree with the divorce settlement, it would have cost even more in attorney fees to fight it and I probably would have lost anyway. I didn't bad mouth her to others. Yet all of our friends avoided me, even the highly educated ones, including the next door neighbors, who had known us since we moved in twenty years prior.

I would drive by during warmer months and they would be out on their back porch. Never a wave or any acknowledgement I was passing by. The wife used to call about once a week just to see how we were doing. After the divorce – nothing. Once I had an occasion to call them, I screwed up my courage to put this lack before her. I said that since the divorce they never called any more. She quickly said that I never called them either. Before the divorce I was often on the phone or over at their house. Somehow it is a whole new ball game after a divorce.

Other professional friends seemed to suddenly “forget” that they ever knew me. A psychologist friend ran into me in the Post Office less than a year after the divorce. He introduced his son to me, less than six moths prior both of us had been to their house to have an evening of playing board games. The wife of this couple is a child psychiatrist, she had a strong competitive streak to her. She was always choosing up sides to play, she had great delight in moving the game pieces about the board always with a comment (sometimes delighted or not as to whether she was winning or not). I didn't care about winning, I just enjoyed the playing. This drove her nuts, especially with some games like Trivial Pursuit that needed an answer of oddball facts – which I can be good at. I still remember her being so totally unhappy that I knew that a ship's carpenter is called a Carfindo. How did I know? Did I memorize the cards ahead of time? She was sure I had cheated somehow. Yet time after time I would come up with the correct answer. She knew that I was bright, she never forgave me for that. I suppose if she was that unable to be relaxed enough to see me more clearly, I shouldn't lament her choice of who to remain on friendly terms with. No great loss, actually. I guess it shows that we are willing to swallow pretty much anything just to have contact with others. The question is at what cost?

Speaking of costs, being here in this facility day after day and so few people come by to visit, I can count the monthly occasions on a finger or two. What do you suppose that might feel like? I am tired of being overlooked or taken for granted. When the nursing staff come in the room first thing every morning, they are all bright and cheery. They ask politely how am I? If I just give the knee jerk response with no fore thought, Ok, or fine, they are happy and then go about their business. If I am truthful and say how much one day is the same as the next, how boring life can be here, they take that as their invitation to be a cheerleader, or my personal coach full of fixes and what I should do.

The message that keeps being sent to me is that the extra time and effort is not going to be made available, maybe to others I am not worth the added effort. Everything is reduced to a monetary value by which things are rated. I suppose this explains why I always was so comfortable in the woods, the animals, trees and landforms didn't care if I had the right socially correct clothing or accessories. I was accepted at first blush. It seems that most people can't do that.

No one seems interested in the things I have to say about people's lack of openness. There is often a very significant silence full of great meaning nobody wants to notice. So I notice and let it go unspoken to. This is so sad.

25 March 2014

Tuesday evening

Now and Then

Its fun to look out the window and still see daylight after dinner. Today is, of course, a shower day, so I was up in the wheelchair for a while after that, being vertical, seeing out through the glass front doors, feeling the cool breeze every once in awhile as the doors are opened for foot traffic. Its still cold, but not the assaultive bone chilling, stone cold that the weather has been this winter.

I am a hopeless romantic and a little kid at heart, for I have always liked snow. During the stultifying days of August I have often dreamed of snow and the winter season like most people dream of their gardens at this time of year. As the autumn progresses and the days grow shorter, the air took on a less viscous quality, that was cooler and more crisp it was a sign that around the end of the Thanksgiving season the first furtive snowflakes would be flying. There was joy in my heart that real snow would be here soon, accumulations of snow, skiable snow, snow that gathered tracks of passing animals, which like photographs retained the image of animal footprints that may have been left under cover of night.

The season of dressing in layers, I always belonged to the thermally responsive set. Cutting , splitting and stacking firewood for next season (that always seemed like such an impossible chore during the warmer months, that task seemed destined for the cooler times.) Somewhere in my house was a photograph of me in some felt boots, a pair of gym shorts, a T – shirt, some work gloves and some dark sunglasses surrounded by sunny snow as I am splitting firewood. I sure do miss those days. It seemed so magical to be working outside on a still winter day, using my body, making preparations for a fire in the wood stove during the heating season. I remember when that photograph was taken, I was comfortable, I had been at it for hours and only got too warm. Luckily for me it was cool enough to peel of a few layers. Everyone else was sedentary, they only “thought” the weather was cold, so for them, it was once they got out into it.

When I used to go skiing out west I used to dress in layers as well. But often there was no place to put the layers peeled off. And once I slowed down, as on the chair lift, the layers were soon needed again. I wore a shell parka with under arm zips to open up some heat trapping jacket to ventilate when I was warm. When I got off the lift at the top of the mountain the jacket was completely zipped up. After a few hundred yards of skiing down the hill I would stop to let my screaming thighs have a rest, my heaving flatlander lungs a chance to pay down my oxygen debt, and to carefully unzip my quickly becoming too warm cocoon. Rested after a bit of scenery scoping of we would go again. The next stop another several hundred yards further downslope the wool shirt under the jacket would be unbuttoned, my arms would be brought out from the inside of the now unzipped sleeves of the jacket so it was more like an open vest with flapping sleeves that looked more like flags streaming out behind me as I once again moved down slope. Compared to those stylish folks in the nice little ski suits that could have walked right out of the fashion pages, I must have looked a sight, like a runaway clothing rack flying down hill. But the object was to ski, not lounge around in the warming shack sipping way too expensive mugs of hot chocolate impressing one another with their latest skiwear.

There were some ski areas that adapted a clothing dress code. They didn't want any poverty ridden skiers mingling with their clientele on the slopes. Usually these areas were more destination resorts that family oriented ski areas. Their lift tickets were correspondingly more expensive and they wanted to keep up their exclusive image. Skiing in jeans was not accepted.

Of course good skiers often skied in jeans as they rarely fell down. The jeans wouldn't get wet and they were therefore warm enough. I had a friend who used Scotch Guard on his jeans to give them that extra water shedding quality. I often fell about once a week during seven days of skiing. I would catch an edge and next thing I knew I was sliding on the snow watching the bare branches of the trees against a background of blue sky. I must have made a spectacular scene going down as people would call over to ask if I was alright.

The ski boots were insulated with a foam called “Flow”. It was a thermoplastic foam that when warm would adjust to the foot. This made for a great fit and as your feet swelled the foam adjusted. There were no tight and uncomfortable places. It was warm even on those long series of chair lift rides to get to the top of the mountain. The down side was after a day of skiing the foot had become sweaty and the inner boot was damp. If the boot wasn't dried and warmed in special boot warmers over night they were impossible to get on the next day. The boot was cold and damp and the foam wouldn't flow, they fit like a vice and the joy of flying down a mountain face was elusive all day. When the boots were dry they worked like a charm.

Often at the end of a day skiing everyone was next to their car taking their ski boots off and putting comfortable shoes and clothes on for the drive back down the mountain. Skis would go on the rack on the roof of the car, some beverages would be produced to resupply the body with fluids from a day of heavy breathing in dry air. During this time I would often take my ski boots off and remove the only socks I skied in, street socks, and stand barefoot on the ice next to my car. I calmly put the skis on the rack, changed my parka for a light fluffy sweater, then finally would sit down on the driver's seat to put on some athletic shoes. While standing barefoot on the ice my feet were steaming. Many times people spied my bare feet on the ice, then they saw the steam rising from my feet. Comments were made, some people took pictures of my feet steaming on the ice, the sun was setting on another day of fun in the Rockies. Right now somewhere someone is going through a bunch of old pictures, probably in a shoebox, wondering why there is a picture of someone standing bare foot in the ice of a parking lot at a ski area in the mountains. It was a magical time. I am glad that I was there for the experience.

This morning, before I got up to have my shower, I looked out the window. Snow was flying through the air. As always I was happy to see the snow fly. The radio said the temperature was four degrees with a high expected of fifty – four degrees, not bad for early spring. Soon it will be very warm and humid, the sun will bite my Celtic skin and I will retreat to the shade when ever possible.

For now the day is young, a shower lies before me and the vestiges of winter are still plying the air. Everyone is upset as the weather hasn't changed fast enough for them, the State inspectors are in the building digging into everything, creating fear and loathing and I'm the only one who seems to appreciate the snow. I'm not really a contrarian, but I do see much more acutely what others often fail to recognize. I'm glad that I was there.

John Whiting 

A response to a friend's less than well thought out atempt at humor and being disabled. 

J.W.

23 February 2014

Sunday 5:00 AM

There is a wrinkle that remains folded over, a ruck that bothers like a stone in one's shoe. The disturbance keeps demanding attention, the intensity mounts. On one hand I want to overlook it, chalk it up to good natured ribbing. But the pain continues, bringing me back to the anguish of a wound not expected.

I realize that humor is a form of tension release, the building of energy that may be counter to prevailing expectations as a punch line is explicated stands our following the development of a joke on its ear. Laughter ensues as we reconcile the two endings, the punch line and the internal understanding as we anticipated the unfolding story. Many people laugh for similar reasons but the story is not some hypothetical, third party story, it is the uncomfortableness felt as someone is set apart from the group and publicly pilloried. The stage act of Don Rickles or a person being roasted at a dinner act as examples here. These examples may be tension inducing and the release needs to be effected, but they are more like watching a bully asail a victim than something humorous.

Yes I realize that some people have no compunction about bullying tactics, perhaps they weren't raised with sufficient input from patient and loving adults. Or maybe they momentarily lapsed their own ability to understand the impact their behaviors could have on others. Either way the recipient of such unfortunate attention may wish the humor impaired perpetrator Godspeed in a swift release of their own internal tension. And since one of the best relievers of tension the body knows is to experience sexual release, the familiar epitaph to go fornicate with one's self quickly rises to the occasion. There are more succinct and rude ways to state this helpful bit of information, many of which are well know to the public. No need to repeat them here.

There are many related and yet not easy aspects to this disease that many people fail to consider. From the CENA helping with my two (count 'em only two) showers a week who after putting my socks on my feet, she lets go of the foot when she has finished to let it drop to the floor – that hurts! To the CENA changing my urine soaked sheets of my bed while I am still in it (a standard hospital technique) who asks me to lift my leg to help her out.

People fail to understand or realize that this disease has progressed to the point where from my sternum down to my toes I have no voluntary control of my muscles. I have reflex responses, but there is no control to those. I cannot stand or walk, I can't roll my ankles in bed, lift my leg or bend my knee. In addition the sphincter muscles (which at rest tighten and close – much like any perching bird or an owl's feet), I cannot control to open and void my bladder or bowel. For over a year now I have had to wear what is basically an adult diaper to catch my bodily effluents. This runs exactly counter to our earliest successes, the graduation from diapers to pull up underwear. The effect runs deep.

There are so many little losses of physical abilities which I had grown up wielding without a second thought, now they are gone, sometimes overnight. Its frightening, how soon will I become entirely dependent on others for everything? I feel partially locked into a noncompliant body now, how long before I cannot speak, put on my iPod headphones, work my computer? I see it in this facility all the time, residents who are washed in bed then put in front of a television for entertainment all day. How long before I join their ranks? I am still getting used to having my briefs (diapers) changed five or six times a day, many of these have gone too long and the sheets are soiled and have to be changed as well. The CENA staff tell me not to worry, but it still feels like a failure on my part, I'm at the same level as a toddler. I used to do better than this. There is no easy way to ease into this.

If I make some self-deprecating double entendre that is my choice. When someone else refers to my loss of bodily function directly trying to make humor - that is crossing the line. Like when a waitress in a restaurant asked me what my blind friend wanted to order (assuming she couldn't order for herself), fire works ensued. Or the coarse ruffians entertaining themselves pickpocketing the carry bag one of my quadriplegic classmates had slung over his wheelchair. Its easy to take advantage of the disabled, nearly anyone can do it, many do, even if the attempt is a feeble play for humor. There are just some things that shouldn't be attempted. One would hope that we as a culture had progressed further than that. Perhaps someday. With any luck this progression might occur at the same time as I become totally dependent on others. One can hope ...

One more added entry.

J.W.

22 February 2014

Saturday afternoon

I've been noticing lately that I have been feeling somewhat sick at heart. An abandonment, sort of, a longing for something I used to find, but that quality seems lost on others. When I couldn't find this in others, I would retreat to the woods to ramble for timeless hours or perhaps take my camera to the garden with a macro lens to see the very tiny that surrounds us. Its rare to find someone who can meet me where I am. Someone who doesn't have to fill the space where sound exists with a constant stream of verbalizations. Someone who understands the space between words reveals an empty tableau that could become anything, not necessarily audio, much as seeing beyond a picket fence reveals another scene in the distance – perhaps the tree in a neighbor's yard.

I've had this affinity for the non-specified since about early childhood. I could find something that no one else noticed and be fascinated for hours. Art, then photography intrigued me, over time the balance of the elements slowly revealed themselves and the ability to manipulate elements of the scene to evoke ideas and emotions became suddenly open to me. I had found that reality if, given time, would speak to me more completely than the way most people use words. In my beginning years at college most classes were presented in boring, lecture format. I can't be too critical though, most people have only been exposed the the expository form of sharing information.

Rather than using words in a fashion that turns everything into an object to be connected in a linear fashion, so sense can be constructed to give to others, the slower, more complete method was completely ignored. By the time I finished my masters degree, I thought there must be a better way. I was lucky to find the Center for Humanistic Studies in Detroit. There I learned that there is an academic way of learning that was not like every other graduate school. There was the usual reading and lots of it. But the topic was very different. We were exposed to authors like Heidegger, Polyani, Maslow, and Rogers and had discussions for classes about the readings, our understandings and felt sensations resulting from the experiential exercises we had undergone.

There is something that turns inside of you when the shift is away from word based, material based manipulation of information as a way of communicating and being with another. Colors become more vibrant, sounds become more significant, even the squeak of a chair has something to offer. Classmates take on a vibrancy and seem more dimensionally real and less like ships passing in the night. There were no notes from these experiential exercises, it was a matter of being there. And yet at the end of each semester, for each class we were to write a scholarly paper about what we had learned using these experiences.

Those who were very familiar with more standard forms of education often had problems with the format, those who were more artistic, wrote poetry, danced, played music, thrived. We had to know all of the standard material, for the licensing exams were based on this, yet the school managed to slip in enough of the experiential approach to make the program unique.

After school I missed the special camaraderie that my classmates shared so easily. I found, doing couples work, that even most married people don't share this level of openness with one another. Most people speak in the pattern that they have always known. It seemed as if I was a castaway on a desert plain, acres of desiccation. Years ago Dire Straits had a song that describes this situation perfectly, Water of Love. Things seem so drained of life. There are signs that things haven't always been this way, but it sure is now.

I used to go for a walk in the woods for my dose of the non-ordinary reality, there is no woods around here, nor any walking either. In the warmer months I can get outside, there is even a small raised planter that brings some simple petunias up to wheelchair height, now its buried in snow, the only flowers in here are plastic. Its difficult to lose one's self gazing at those, images of the petrochemical industry keep intruding.

At least one CENA on every shift enjoys visiting with me and we can begin a number of discussions, but I seem to have generated an alternate reputation in that part way into a discussion a different CENA will poke her head in the door and say to the first CENA, “Oh here you are, I thought that you might be here, I need help with the woman in 312.” There are the dangling ends if many interrupted, unfinished discussions hanging about. Some still throbbing with vitality, others desiccated, dry and stiff from too long left hanging.

It amazes me how facilities such as this seek to look after the resident's physical needs, but have little idea about the person's mental and emotional needs or how to meet them. At times it seems that I speak a foreign tongue. I know the words are heard, the blank look on the faces tell me there is a struggle to understand exactly what is being said. What could I be talking about?

I can only read some of my old texts for so long. Its like seeing shadows of some former times through a gauze veil. The hint of the fresh breeze that was, is just a stagnant pocket of air now.

Send Spring soon … please!

John Whiting '00

A selfie one Saturday, nothing to do.

Another catch up entry.

J.W.

18 February 2014

Tuesday morning

3:45 AM

I was awakened about ten minutes ago by the presence of someone entering my room. Its a defense mechanism, I guess. Even in sound sleep there is a creepy feeling that gives me the willies when someone comes into the space where I am sleeping. It just wakes me up, instantly, no grogginess. I am catapulted straight to a full waking state.

Normally this comes into play when the third shift CENAs come round to check and change my briefs, an event that occurs two to three times per night shift. This is normal and I have become used to it. I get along well with the ladies on the third shift. It demonstrates that the institution is serious about looking after me, making sure I don't sit in my own effluents too long. I appreciate that.

This was not one of those events. It occurred about an hour after the last brief check. I was asleep, with my CPAP mask on, connected to an oxygen line, when suddenly I was drawn to full waking consciousness by the presence of someone entering my room. Through the door strode this tall fellow wearing a dark gray T-shirt and a faded navy blue baseball hat and a pair of tidy whiteys. Silently, as if he were inspecting the facility he strode in, leaving the door wide open behind him. I could hear my neighbor's television in the next room issuing forth with its all night television programing. About five feet into the room the interloper spied the open, darkened doorway to the bathroom attached to my room. He turned and walked in there without turning on the light.

From the darkened bathroom I could hear the small sound of a slight stream cascading into the toilet. A remarkable feat coming from such a dark place. Like many males, he did not flush the toilet nor did he make any effort to wash his hands in the basin, which I'm sure works equally well under conditions of darkness. Then the inspector blithely walks back into my room with his hands clasped behind his back in a most leisurely fashion, as if to imply that nothing was amiss. He slowly made his way back through my room and out the door by which he entered. He didn't bother to close the door behind him as he left, my next door neighbor's television continued to spew that mind numbingly lowbrowed programming out into the vastness.

My neighbor is a cantankerous sort who has sustained his own special indignity to live here at Dead End Acres Rehab Center and Nursing Home. He is a former truck driver who has had a left hemisphere stroke. He does speak, but I have no idea if he has such a limited vocabulary because of his stroke or his previous lifestyle. He seems to delight in verbally abusing the CENA staff whenever he can. His vocabulary rests on the extensive overuse of “bitch, whore, the F- word, and goddamnit”. After which he manages that partial smile that is the hallmark of many stroke patients. His bark is way worse than his bite although he does on occasion strike out with his good arm. When he is awake he guards his room fiercely. Due to some lapse on the part of the original architect when the building was built the entrance to my room is gained by going through my neighbor's room. So much for privacy, of which there is none around here. No CENA or nurse can enter his room whether my neighbor is in bed or in his wheelchair, without being vocally accosted. He makes the perfect alarm system for anyone approaching my room. Except it was late enough in the night that even my cheap alarm system had conked out and was fast asleep – with the television running.

The middle of the night visitor was only gone a short moment before he returned. He must have stepped out of Joe's room (my neighbor) into the hallway, become confused and returned to see if anything in my room made any sense. I have been pressing the call light with great emphasis, which does absolutely nothing to make the CENAs appear any faster. One of only two CENAs on duty eventually appears. I tell her of the unwanted visitor. She tells me they have been having trouble with him all night. She says they begin to check and change one resident's brief (a tag team event) and this character gets up, puts his hat on and goes exploring. They are right now trying to find him.

This is the problem with being in a facility like this, they will accept anybody from the hospital at first, then they determine if that resident is too disruptive for the facility and maybe the residents.

6:30 AM

Eventually I submit to sleep. Reconfigure my CPAP mask, park my glasses in a safe spot and catch up on my interrupted slumbers. Two more times the night shift CENAs come in to my room looking for the explorer. He wasn't here.

7:40 AM

I awoke at seven-thirty and set the sleeping arrangements aside, getting my tray table ready for breakfast which can arrive as early as quarter of eight or as late as eight- thirty. Then yon wanderer again enters my room. I get a good look at him this time, I have my glasses on. He is tall and thin. His hair is blond and quite unruly, headed in eight directions at once. It looks as if he combed his hair with a pillow. Wearing a flannel shirt with a blue and gray pattern, and a pair of tidy whiteys. Here walks into my bathroom and all remains silent. Meanwhile I have again been pressing the call light button hoping that someone will respond in a timely fashion. The mysterious visitor has again left the door open behind him. I look beneath the tray tables to see the light blue pants of the nurse's uniform approaching my door. I just hold up one hand pointing to the bathroom. The nurse comes right in and goes to the bathroom. She sees the nightly wanderer and asks what does he think he's doing. “Why, getting ready to see the doctor' he replies, sounding very confused. This isn't your room, its not even your bathroom. Come with me, I'll show you where you need to be. Looking very disheveled the wanderer meekly follows the nurse out my door. Again, typical for the nurses here, the door is left wide open. Joe's television blares some morning show to a now empty room. Joe has been retrieved from bed and placed in his wheelchair and removed for the day, leaving his television to wear some sort of endless soundtrack into any who are nearby.

Throughout the day I hear more and more about the tall wanderer. It has the quality of gossip, not much should be made of it, except one thing, the tone of voice. This guy has the CENAs creeped out. They are leery of him. I don't know if he is dealing with elder dementia issues or a stroke. But caring for him looks to be a huge demand of time that the CENAs really don't want to take from their other residents.

The one thing that is nice to see is that the CENA staff does show some concern for delivering quality care. I must have done something right to not give the administration reason to pawn me off on someone else. This place may be several levels away from competing with the Ritz, but their collective heart is in the right place. That makes all the difference.

Keep your humor dry.

John Whiting 

somewhere in southern Michigan

23 February 2014

I have been away from this blog due to having a collapsed lung and ensuing antibiotics. I was extremely tired and had no energy or willingness to write. I'm better now but i got out of the routine. i will add some writing I have done lately, this may help to explain the jump in dates at the top of the page.

J.W.

9 February 2014

Sunday – a grey day

It is a particularly grey day today. Typical for Michigan being down wind from a large patch of open water (read: great lakes) that rarely freezes over, the constant influx of additional atmospheric moisture makes for a long season of overcast and grey skies. For a Michigander the overcast of winter can just be too long about half way through the season. This is when the “blahs” begin to show up. Let's just be done with it already. Spring can start anytime now.

All of this is made worse now as I no longer can go for a walk, go ski in the woods or any of those physical “work off the winter blues” activities. I even used to enjoy cutting and splitting firewood for next year's heating season on cold winter days. All that has changed now. I get to let the winter climate stream through a closed window any more. The view is bleak, the sky grey, and the three story Juniper outside my window just holds snow on its branches as if to mock me that there is at least snow to play with.

Having no children, I never was privy to watching the passage of time play out before me. I always felt as if I were in my early thirties going on whatever my chronological age was. I never let the idea of age bother me. This worked for a long time, I seemed immune or at least “removed” from getting older. I saw myself becoming not as young and still working, but just a little less, that's all. I had planned longer vacations, maybe with a theme, like retracing the Louis and Clark expedition – in stages. Maybe make some photographs accompanied by a journal of the trip. I could turn it into a book … I was going to ease into the second half of my life with style and grace. No more struggle. No more worrying about anything.

When I was 59 or 60 (I'm 62 now) I was diagnosed with MS. In one quick action I was plucked from my vision of the second half of my life and moved directly to the next phase after that. I am now a member of the “Old Guys”group. I sleep in a hospital bed, in an institution, have 24 hour attendants, am fed according to someone else's choices of what I should like and when I will eat it, can't get out of bed on my own,I wear big adult diapers, which don't always hold everything, so I often sit in urine soaked sheets until the overworked staff can get a moment to change me and the bed. This is what I expected when I hit ninety, not sixty. Where are those golden years I was looking forward to?

This is my present backstory. Then this morning I learned one of my high school friends succumbed to leukemia last night. Boy, suddenly my peers are dropping away a little faster than we expected. My friend Miles and I always planned on collaborating on some photo projects, trading stories from our shared past, our careers, you know, that second half of life stuff. Each of us got hustled out of that in a hurry, right into the “Old Guys”group. Where the skim of invincibility shows itself to be more wishful thinking than a matter of fact that I wanted to depend on. This comes on you with the same fierceness and finality of discovering that while you thought that you were fully clothed, walking through the center of town, you are actually naked. The boundary between living and surviving draws tighter while the possibilities of that final exit loom at the edges.

I know that any of us can die at any time, but it is when feebleness is your closest associate that the bleak result moves as close as just over your shoulder. I wish that Miles had been able to keep the leucocytes in check (he did) and get the red blood cells to recover (they couldn't), that was the plan. But not everything adheres to the plan.

I wish that I could get out of bed unaided, walk to the bathroom and pee in the pot. But that simple pleasure left a long time ago. I am thrilled that I survived a partially collapsed lung a few weeks ago(due to the MS not permitting full expansion for deep inhalations). Survived the ensuing infection and all the antibiotics. Now I am on oxygen with a cannula living halfway up my nose 24 hours a day. They say that getting old is not for sissies. I can attest to that.

I know that things will look better another day. I have had enough for now though. Too much has happened to just keep on smiling. I hurt in a non-physical way. I'm tired of the “Old Guys”group and its special concerns. I just have to give it words and let it go. Just writing this has helped. I'll drift to sleep tonight listening to the blues on my ipod. Thing will look different tomorrow.

Thanks for providing me a place to share the load.

Sometimes too much is simply too much.

John Whiting, 

somewhere in southern Michigan