i remember you

i woke up this morning feeling sad, bad, and a little like suicide. but i wasn't going to do it. i'm stronger than that. it felt very much like just a reminder from something darker that whether or not i have strength and courage to endure, whether or not i have the will to survive, i am not ever fully out of danger, i must always be vigilant because i can get stupid in a second and there will be no taking it back.

so i did some of my packing today, but otherwise i sat and played cards online, figuring that my one job for the day was simply to survive. i even won a couple games; i had a granny hand in the tenth and went alone, and in the other game a guy who otherwise had the game sewed up went on a bad pick and got taken for everything.

if you are from wisconsin you already know that i was playing sheepshead.

anyway, i got suited up and went to my race, only i couldn't remember how to get there. except i actually got there, but i didn't see evidence of the race happening; maybe the storm came through there and they cancelled? but i didn't know i was there while i was there (looked it up when i got home) so i drove around a while looking.

but then i figured i'd have time to go to staples and get the thing i was supposed to get today but didn't, and as long as i was up there i took my bike down and i rode from the strip mall into downtown swanton and back, just to have gotten a ride.

i love my road bike.

so then i went back into staples to use their rest room and change into clean-ish clothes and i got on the interstate to go home thereby avoiding traffic in st. albans, which has the third stupidest traffic pattern in the world and i was going to just stay on the interstate all the way down to exit 11, but i know full well that the trip is much shorter if you get off at exit 19 and go by route 104 through fairfax.

i work in fairfax. and i have not been in fairfax since 21 december, so that was a little hard. but i am insisting lately on taking my life back. i have a limited amount of time in which to regain my strength and be fit to work again. and parenthetically, i want to lose about sixty pounds.

anyway, st. lukes's cemetery is on the way out of fairfax. sometimes i go to visit the graves of people i know who are buried there and tonight i needed to go, really bad. it wasn't even like a choice.

a long time ago i was on my way to work in the morning and traffic was all tied up with emergency vehicles; a man i knew had thrown himself off of the dam at the falls. i didn't know him very well, but i knew his wife and children. i am fond of the wife and i love the children. i was standing just behind the boy when they came to tell him. i will never forget it.

the man had what i have; he did what i was going to do. he died of of it, and i wanted to go and kneel at his grave and pray. and i wanted to ask him to talk to me; to tell me in retrospect what a terrible mistake it had been. i wanted him to come and tell me something important, something i can take and use to make myself strong, to help me survive.

near where he's buried are graves of other people i knew: a boy who died young; he had the cynicism of a child who knows he is dying and has no time for the silly pretenses we go through with children.

and i don't know if you remember that plane that went down in an iowa cornfield in july 1989, but i lost two children i cared about and their parents in that crash. that was a hard, hard funeral to be at. four matching coffins are wheeled in and a visible wave of visceral pain washes across the room.

but i was kneeling at that one grave, hoping for something to hold on to.

tell me it was a mistake. tell me to keep going.

and then i was crying and i couldn't stop. i called rumblestrip, but i had to get on the road. and you know, i'm not such a good driver when i'm crying. and every fifteen minutes or so i had to pull over and call rumblestrip to tell her i was all right.

and somewhere on the road, i found myself shouting: "you cannot have me. i do not belong to you. i belong with the living. i am going to live."

and i made it home. put my bike away. i didn't really feel like talking to rumblestrip, but i had to call and tell her i was in. i didn't call her right away, but instead came right upstairs to light a candle and beg:

bob, please make me yours and yours alone. if i did not belong wholly to you before, take me up now. let me be yours and yours only. please.

the dimming of the day

this evening i just laid and watched a red sunset play across the sky; it reminded me of a day long ago when we were camping on mt. abe and we went up to the summit to watch the red sunset before making our way down in the darkness to our camp.

it was a beautiful night and everything was perfect and i was excruciatingly sad. i could not understand it. now, of course, i understand when it happens, although i still am not protected from it.

last night i was with the crashcos in bethlehem NH and we were going to do just one more cache on our way to the last cache of the day; it turned out we did them in the opposite order and we were walking up the trail (an old closed, gated road) in the last of the crepuscular light. being sick has taken a lot out of me. i get winded more easily. i can't keep up on the trail. i can't manage as many hills as i used to.

later on the way home we see a sign that proclaims bethlehem the poetry capital of NH. huh? i'm ot sure i even want that explained.

anyway.

but we're almost to the top and i hear this huge and persistent noise and i cannot figure out what it is. it is loud and it is definately machine in nature. and mrs. crashco points it out to me and all the hair on the back of my neck stands to.

we have been walking up the outside boundary of a landfill and we are very close to the huge jet where they are burning off the methane. i have a great phobia of pipes and such and it extends to landfill flares.

it casts a light of its own. this makes the hunting of the ammo can extra exciting for me. we finish off the day far from home, but we have found ten caches and hunted some others. crashco says it would take a lot of the sport out of it if you knew you were going to find every one.

i came home just after midnight, but for most of the day i got to live the way i used to, before i was sick. it was like being me again.

lately i'm starting to feel as if the key to recovery is to simply start living the way i used to when i was well. maybe i can take my life back and not spend so much time waiting for treatments to work.

and then i had to get up early to meet rumblestrip at the church to practice a little thing we'd put together. rumblestrip is an excellent collaborator. i am usually not good about sharing; i'm fussy about word stress and i'm too much of a perfectionist with my own material to be able to share creative work. but it's good with rumblestrip.

and the thing goes over really well. people like it and they get rumblestrip's jokes a lot quicker than i did when we were working on it.

skipper wasn't in church this morning, so i missed her. and i had to offload her loaf of bread.

we're coming up on the first week of july, which would be a year from when i first had the courtesy to notice the presence of God in the universe. and the second week of july would be the anniversary of my last breakup. and the anniversary of some other, older breakups. what is it about july?

nevermind the breakups, though. they make good stories to tell, but i'm better off and the important thing is that the Creator Of All Things took a moment to tell me to call Him bob.

"might as well call me something you're comfortable with."

it's evidence that God is a comedian: up until that moment "bob" had been my generic name for anything about which i did not care or did not feel i needed.

if you're looking to read the whole story of how that happened, you can find the beginning of it here.

so i'm going back to that same campground next week, for the third year in a row, which will be interesting especially since that's where i was at the time. it will be a good time to practice gratitude.

there's been a lot in the last week that hasn't been pretty. and d, i'm sorry you were having a bad week as well. i kept checking back in the middle of everything to see if you'd written anything anywhere and then i started to worry about you and yes, there was a candle for you as well.

me, i've been struggling. or i had been struggling until wednesday. it's hard to tell you the story without impinging on parts of the story that aren't mine to tell, but i tink i can quote you just a little from what i wrote to rumblestrip:

"i cried all the way around that course tonight. and i prayed:

i have not been your best or smartest or most obedient child, but if ever i did love you, if ever i did honor you, if ever my work was acceptable to you, let me go. let my suffering come to an end. let me say goodbye and let me go."

what happened eventually was that i did not go. i will not tell you how it came about.

i'm going to toss in here a bit of information only because you had something to say about the unavailability of Barbara and Flyingfisher; dr. n and my mom were both on vacation as well, although probably not together.

so rumblestrip and the crashcos got extra duty.

a thing happened in me wednesday night, difficult to comprehend and even more difficult to explain, but i may have turned a corner. that's a scary thing to say. it is frightening to allow myself to rely on a thing like that. you know.

but bob sez: "have faith."

thursday i had a pretty good day. but thursday night i had a hard time sleeping. i'm not allowed benzos the night before a treatment, so that's already working against me, but i kept hearing a noise. and i started to realize: that noise is here, in my room.

so it was about 0300 and finally i got it figured out; there was a mouse in my wastebasket. crashco came at 0600 to wake me up and take me to treatment, and because treatments are wrecking my memory and because i'd been having a hard time, they increased the amount of caffeine they put in the IV to 500 mg.

one day very long ago i drank fourteen cups of coffee in one day. this wasn't that bad, but i was WIDE AWAKE. i was supposed to sleep for a while and then rumblestrip was going to come over so we could work on our project, but the best i could do was lie quietly in bed and let the maelstrom of suddenly un-forgotten things wash over me.

i sent this to rumblestrip:

here's an idea: why don't you decide when you'd like to arrive and just go for it? if for some reason i have managed to fall asleep, just wake me. otherwise, i'll just be resting quietly, but sleep is looking kind of doubtful.

when rumblestrip arrived, i was not only awake, but i was baking bread. i love to bake bread. it is a lovely, life-affirming activity.

lately i have only been having treatment on fridays. we are now thinking of moving to once every other week. we are not sure the treatments help at all, but by the same token, we are not sure that they're not helping. here's a horrible thought: maybe things would be a lot worse without the treatments.

so, to recap my week:

monday: not so good.
tuesday: bad. ran my race anyway.
wednesday: very bad. rode my race, begged God to be allowed to die.
thursday: reasonably good, but only three hours of sleep.
friday: treatment, way too much caffeine, still no sleep. bellyache at night, don't get much sleep.
saturday: meet the crashcos at 0830 (way too early) stay out until midnight. almost like being my old self again. still not enough sleep.
sunday: meet rumblestrip at church at 0915 (still too early) come home after church and sleep until 1530. had bad dreams. feel sad.

tomorrow i'm going to try to catch up on more of my geocaching logs. tonight i hope to sleep. during the week i hope to organize and pack my gear the way i used to. i'm trying to remember how to be me.

run - bike - run

that's the way they do it in the duathlon, only they do it all at once, or at least in the same day. i ran a duathlon once; i was the last finisher, and not by a small margin, either. i'm not sure i remember correctly, but i think i was forty minutes behind the last finisher. it was a local event and they knew me, so they knew what a struggle it had been for me. the ovation was terrific.

most weeks i run on tuesday, ride on wednesday, and ride on thursday.

run - bike - bike.

works for me.

this year i'm slower than death drinking molasses on a january morning on account of being sick and all that, but i am not a stranger in these places and people don't seem to mind. we figure i'm doing pretty well by just taking a place on the start line, nevermind the finish.

i fell in love with columbines when i was very young and my family went with some others to walker island campground- we had one of those fabulous old VW pop-top campers which my dad outfitted with a corvair engine and that thing could really book. i'm not sure, but i think that up until a few months ago it was sitting in the driveway of gaye symington; sometimes you see your old cars after you sell them. it was extremely old, so i shudder to think of where it's gone now.

anyway, our campsite had a rock ledge at the back of it, which was magic to me: the rocks broke apart in interesting ways and i still have some of them. and there were columbines, both red and blue.

not that any of this matters or relates in any way to what i have to say tonight, other than that i'm a stream of consciousness kind of person and i don't think i was quite finished with columbines in my stream of consciousness.

so this week i did the usual run and bike on tuesday and wednesday, but thursday's timetrial was the mount philo course, which for some reason i habitually do not ride, even though it does not actually go up mount philo.

if your reasoning isn't all bunched and twisted up, you're probably going to have a real hard time with what follows next. i'm not trying to make sense of it nor am i trying to justify it; i'm just going to tell you what happened.

i felt pretty good on thursday. if you've been following the story you know that this is a fairly significant thing. and i remember thinking: now would be a good time to make an exit, before it comes back.

i had an appointment with dr. n. in the morning and then i went to visit my mom at her office, and she took me over to the café, where gino made me a sandwich. i can never decide what i really want, so i always just ask gino to make me whatever's good today. he always hits it right on. so he made me this really excellent turkey club on a good hearty italian bread, grilled up perfectly. gino is on my list of People Who Can Make Sandwiches. plus i just love gino besides, and it's always really great to see him.

but then i have some time to kill before my next appointment and all of a sudden i'm so tired i can barely sit up. there's an empty office and i crawl down onto the floor for a nap. first i check my email, 'coz i'm like that. it's only an important detail because while i sleep, i happen to be logged on.

and it's while i'm asleep that the idea comes to me that now i should get out and be done with it, while i still feel pretty good, so i don't have to face the pain again. because i know that pain will be coming back, maybe soon. and i want to be gone before it comes.

but still sleeping, i crawl up from the floor and i write a one-line message and send it to rumblestrip: make me tell you the truth.

and i wake up and go to my next appointment. i still feel pretty good, but nothing really matters. i come home and start putting things in order. i sit on the couch, happily tying the knot, making sure it will slide, that it will fit well. i'm in no hurry. there are beams in the basement and there are beams in the garage.

and the phone rings.

it's crashco. he wants to know if i want to go run the 5k trail run out at morse farm. sure. what the heck?

my body notices the difference. i cannot just sneak run - bike - run into the week and escape notice. "hey! that's an extra run! that honkin' hurts!" and i remember thinking: yeah, but it beats dying.

oh, bob. i have been ignoring you all day. i have not remembered to listen for your great voice and if you spoke to me at all i took care not to hear you. no wonder i am so warped. just this sunday pastor debbie was talking about asking you for what we need. and i sure wasn't asking. or listening.

and i finished that run. last, of course. but even though i am a stranger at that venue, there was an ovation. and i won a pair of very nice socks in the raffle. and then the crashcos and i went up to the shop and got some very fine maple creemees. you have to check at the shop, what's made with pure morse maple and what's made with maple blended from other producers.

but there was still that rope to deal with when i got home. i walk around a lot of the time in a fragile state. and i wasn't done with it.

and the phone rings.

it's rumblestrip. how did my day go? she wants to know. i tell her about this and that and the other and finally she demands the truth. the WHOLE truth. and i tell her. i don't trust myself to be done with it. rumblestrip has a few things to say about it and she stays on the phone with me for a while.

i have a wish to allow her to get off the phone and get some sleep, to be able not to worry about me, and i promise her that there will be nothing tonight. sometimes i send her a late email even though i know she is already asleep; here is an excerpt of what i wrote her:

i did promise God several months ago that there will be no suicide. i did not promise a trouble-free arrival at that. i want to promise you, as well, and much like my promise to God, i'm going to need your help. i really hope you won't get sick of me and my illness; i'm better now than i used to be, but not all better. i don't ever remember not being sick.

(...) you have the right to demand some things of me. because of all that i am, sometimes you will have to make demands and not suggestions. with your help there is much of value that i can do. (...)

someday, and soon, i hope, i will need you less and less.(...) the steamer trunks bit by bit become valises.

i am off to my shower now. i have been carefully ignoring God all day. maybe later i can tell you what happened to me out on the racecourse. but i will ask God to wash All This off of me, and i will sit down to prayer. then i will put that coin in my left hand and i will sleep. pretty late, probably.

i will ask bob especially for you to sleep deeply and to wake refreshed.

i woke late, several times, each time a phone call came in. then i was up for a while, and then crashco called to ask if i wanted to go geocaching. it was like being the old me again. one of the caches was in hubbard park and one was in the greenmount cemetery. the greenmount cemetery is a big favorite of mine and i'm including here a link to some of my photographs of it. they're part of a very old site that i no longer maintain, so i'm making no apologies for the state of the links.

we went to another cache off of some trails i didn't recognize and then we went into barre and had some really marvelous pizzas, neither of which involved any tomato sauce. mushrooms and mushroom sauce, yes. prosciutto and carmelized onions, yes. tomato sauce, no.

and we sat and watched the red sox doing well against the braves; i'd say we were watching them win, but i have followed the red sox for enough years to know it ain't over 'til it's over.

you know the old joke about bill buckner attempting suicide? yeah, he stepped out in front of a bus but it rolled between his legs...

yeah, anyway. it was weird, because i was facing the board where they list the specials and the schedule for acoustic night, which is every thursday and i had a little stroll down memory lane because on july 6 el hombre sin nombre is playing, and if i were telling you the whole story you would know why we weren't allowed to use his name in the house. at least as far as i could understand it, which wasn't very far.

if i were telling you the whole story, you would get to laugh a lot at the point where i have to insist "i am not responsible for my behavior in your dreams"

anyway, tomorrow a group of my friends are going to visit this geocache. i won't be with them, but i hope they have a good time and i'm looking forward to reading their logs.

me, i have to bake that bread i've been threatening to bake. then maybe i'll look for some caches myself. or call the happy party and meet up with them later.

there's a lot to do.

red columbine and marsh bellflower

today i slept until eleven, had a little breakfast and went back to bed. i slept through my alarm and had to call bert and tell him i was coming in late. then i caught every traffic light the wrong way, got caught behind the train, and for some reason all the traffic was moving at about ten miles an hour below the speed limit.

go figure.

and then i was going to do a little grocery shopping, but on the way i stopped at the essex overlook park where there is a very old and venerable cache. not to visit the cache, although i might have done if i could have remembered where to look, but just because i wanted to go stand near the water. the rocks and sand are beautiful and there are lots and lots of flowers. red columbines are a favorite of mine.

so anyway. i got my groceries and i went home and packed up all the bikes and gear so i could go to the race venue, and meet rumblestrip and the crashcos. especially rumblestrip, since i was functioning today as the bike valet; there is much gear she is borrowing from me. including my blue rocky, a bike i love but don't ride much anymore. there was this thing about needing a full suspension bike because i'm not getting any younger so now i ride the red rocky.

but it's been a while since i last wrote; stuff keeps piling up.

i didn't get around to baking bread, but crashco and i did go to my dad's birthday party. of course we had to stop along the way to find a geocache, but we did get there. my stepsister made this really awesome oreo cake and i ate a lot of it. we had to stop to cache one the way home, too.

sunday morning i actually got to church AT THE RICHMOND CONGO! i met the interim pastor, who is very nice. i think i could get to like her. of course i had nothing for the plate and not enough gas to get home on, so i owe skipper twenty dollars.

at about six o'clock in the afternoon on monday the sun came out. it is beautiful here where i live. and all of a sudden the depression came crashing down on me for no apparent reason. sometimes it just does that.

it is a pain like nothing else; it has no parallel, no frame of reference. it is very hard to face a thing like that without a suicide wish. i felt all of a sudden as if the thing i needed most was to go down to the church, but who would i call to let me in? who would sit with me?

so instead i went out to the driveway to work on the bikes. they need to be cleaned and tuned and polished, of course.

there was one thing that saved me; one thing that made me willing to continue to bear that prodigious pain. i was past obedience and out of my head. i will not tell you what it was.

i will tell you that i had some terse words with bob. why is it i have to be made this way? what good does this serve? i'd rather it were not that, i told bob. but if it has to be that, it has to be that. teach me to be obedient. teach me to love as You love. Instruct me; place Your strength in my hands.

i couldn't sleep monday night. there is a particular dread of laying awake for hours and then rolling over to see the clock show a quarter to four. no matter. i don't have to be especially awake to have them pump me full of sedation.

but then tuesday afternoon i couldn't sleep either. and i got up in the early evening as is my habit and went to run my weekly 5k with the crashcos. this week i ran with my ipod, and from the top of goose hill down to the garden i heard eight minutes of the road goes on forever and the party never ends and i actually came in faster than last week.

and then i slept until eleven, which is i believe where you came in on the story.

but tonight at the race they announced that sunday's race is being postponed on account of bad trail conditions, so it turns out i can go to church at the regular venue, which means i'll be available to sing in the choir, which i love and where i am useful, and on saturday i'll make time to make that bread, probably orange apricot and it will be a lovely surprise for the pastor to learn that the job comes with fresh bread. there will be loaves for whoever bought them at the auction, and there'll be an orphan loaf if you know where to look.

i have to go. for some reason i made a 09:30 appointment with dr. novas; don't ask me what i was thinking. but then in the afternoon i have to go have a physical so they can judge me to be in good enough shape to keep frying me.

so. i hope you sleep well, and i hope you wake refreshed.

the rain it raineth every day

i'm a big shakespeare fan. have been since i was a little slip of a thing. so that's where i'm taking today's title from. one night when i was a kid i sat up all night and read all of shakespeare's histories, listening to the saint-saens requiem, over and over.

well, not actually all of the histories; i didn't read king john or henry VIII, because they're not part of the same narrative as the others, but to really follow them (as i explained to my father, who "suggested" i should go to bed) you have to read them all at once, and it helps if you have a few maps and charts handy.

it has nothing to do with anything, really, except that it just never seems to be not raining here anymore. it's starting to get on my nerves.

last night i went out and rode the huntington course. i remembered it as being much steeper, but i was slow anyway; about 503 seconds slower than last time. the important thing to remember is to stay rubber side down n the return trip. the pavement can be kind of bumpy and you want to stay all the way out on the bars. so. no brakes.

it was the first outing in the new uniform, so that was kind of fun, but as i think i mentioned already, it was raining. ordinarily i'd just change clothes in the parking lot, but it was cold and rumblestrip doesn't live too far away, so i went over there and changed indoors which was a nice change of pace and i also got to hang out with rumblestrip for a while, so that was nice.

especially since rumblestrip's out of town for a few days. the Flyingfishers are gone to the world cup. i'll miss 'em.

i always say that if you're going to be gone, it's good to be missed, and rumblestrip and Flyingfisher should be happy to know that they were missed tonigt at the party.

it was kind of bittersweet for me, because people, especially newer people, treat me like the "famous flask"; you know, the flask who used to have the really big cache adventures. the flask who used to be the first finder, or solve the big puzzles, or stay out for a week at a time, or find a dozen in a day.

but now i'm the flask that barely finds anything, who stays home most days and sleeps. i am not even caught up in my logging; i'm still working on st. patrick's day, when i was out with DJ and CAL. before things turned really bad.

so people treat me like i'm still a big hitter, but i feel like a fraud.

it's nice to get out and see people, though, even though i have some brain damage and some memory loss and there are a lot of places and people that ought to be familiar and that i ought to remember, so i spend a lot of time kind of standing around smiling politely, trying to remember who people are.

there are a few folks i can remember on my own, people who really understand and do everything they can to help me cover for the memory lapses. and some people just understand and don't mind having to reintroduce themselves.

i made a quick bread this afternoon; it was supposed to be banana bread and heaven knows there were enough bananas in it, but i don't think it came off all that well. still, a couple of people at the party (people i know to have trustworthy taste) liked it just fine and took all they could get.

you know what they say: there's no tasting accountants.

so. tomorrow i have to make some bread (orange apricot, i think) and go to my dad's birthday party. i think crashco will come with me for company, which means we'll stop at a geocache or two. now i have to take a truckload of meds and supplements and go to bed. oddly enough, i'm sleepy, even though i woke up this morning, had some luckies, went back to bed and slept until two. then i lay inert for another hour.

but when i woke up, the depression had lifted. sometimes you get what you need.

i hope you get what you need. i hope you sleep soundly and wake refreshed. i hope you travel safely. i hope your team wins.

je vous souhaite de bonnheur et de bonne chance.

up and down

do you remember that song? up and down? cookie monster and herry monster used to sing it. i wish i could find a downlod for you, but all i could get was the lyrics. probably more than you need anyway.

so.

sunday night i was crashing and by monday i was crashed. couldn't stop crying. didn't care. good time to die, as far as i was concerned. spent a long time on the phone with my mom. nothing helped. but i made it through. didn't sleep so well monday night.

went staggering in for ECT on tuesday. Betsy got the IV started right away, almost. the meds weren't too painful going in. but i woke up with the most horrible cramps. YES, that's twice in two weeks. the good news is that i could possibly be the age for it.

that would be nice. it would also be nice to blame all of monday (or even some of it ) on PMS.

when i got homw tuesday i crawled right into bed and slept while my mom hung out and did a lot of the household chores. it is good to wake up and find the laundry done and the patio weeded. except i still wish she could just get the knack of throwing the underwear into the drawer all bunched up, the way i like it.

and when i woke up the depression had lifted. the crashcos came and picked me up and we went for our weekly run. i was very slow and it was very painful. it's kind of like a metaphor for my life: i keep going and i keep going and it hurts so much i can hardly stand up but people stand and cheer for me as i go by and i have to keep going until i cross the finish line.

so i do.

and i don't know for sure, but i'll bet i am the only runner on that course who spent any part of the day under general anesthesia.

at any rate, by back is crampier than last week, but in general i have less soreness in my legs and feet, and i'm also ten minutes faster than last week.

rumblestrip took me home afterward, so i fed her some dinner and we were able to have some words with bob.

i crave sugars after the treatment. i eaat mor luckies than maybe i should. and i like to drink horchata and i like to eat freezer waffles because they make an excellent vehicle for grade B maple syrup. it's hard to get grade B, unless you know people. i know some people.

which brings us to wednesday. i've pretty much written off choir for the season, because i have races on the remaining choir days. but i miss them so. and the choir kind of needs rumblestrip, so the challenge was to get rumblestrip through the race and off to choir practice. precision bike valet.

only tricky bit was all the rain. took me forever to wrestle my way in and out of wet sports bras. and the mud!

but i got cleaned up and dresed up and mounted my bike and was mostly ready to take care of rumblestrip's gear. fed her a banana, a granola bar, and some gatorade (flavor: blue) on the way to practice.

i was so happy to see skipper and everybody i was afraid my face was going to break, with all that grinning.

it was a blast. probably too much of one, 'coz there's always a down side. knowing about it is usually the best protection from it, though.

so in a little while i'll get suited up and go race the huntington course and try not to get run over.

there's more?

the disturbing thing about it is how unfamiliar everything looked. i almost couldn't find the Flyingfisher's house, even though i practically lived there over the summer.

well, not really, but i was there a lot over the summer and into the fall.

in july i made this pen-and-ink-and-colored-pencil sketch of the Flyingfishers' front door. the text reads:

let blessings fall upon this house

and all within it dwell;

please give to them good fortune

keep them happy, whole, and well.

in the morning i went to church at the west lebanon congo, where they were very nice and i was shy about it, but i told them that i have been sick for a long time and that i could use their prayers. they were very generous.

and i meant to go do some light geocaching in the afternoon, but when i got back to the Flyingfishers, it was all i could do to change back into my pjs and get in bed. i think i slept until about three-thirty, and then i meant to do some caching on the way home, but i just couldn't get it all together.

and i felt prettty good, really, almost like a habit and then it hit me like, well, i don't know. it's kind of like the same death-dealing depression and i'm sick of fighting it, sick of having every action, every move i make be a purposeful thing i do to stay out of it and i realize that i'm tired.

i'm tired of, well, i'm just tired. and now i'm crying. i'll probably hold it together long enough to get to bed. that's what i'm doing now: holding it together.

everything sucks.

nimoy as lincoln

rain.

it's raining. it's been raining. i wanted to go geocaching. i wanted to go geocaching in some way similar to the way i used to.

i'm not stupid; i know i can't have it the way it used to be. i've been sick for a long time and treatment takes a lot out of me. i used to pack up my car for days and just go.

used to be i was the first finder most of the time; not anymore.

but i was going to go this weekend. of course i couldn't drive after treatment on friday. of course the IV nurse couldn't get the IV started and it took the anesthesiologist for-honkin'-ever.

and i was SO sick afterward. it took me a long time to wake up and then i was nauseated and since they had already taken out my IV, the anti-nauseal came in suppository form.

but i was going to come down here to the Flyingfishers and i ran my PQs and once i was all packed i needed a nap.

so about five hours later i was ready to go, but i kept having this dream about abraham lincoln, only he was being played by leonard nimoy. and i kept dreaming about maple syrup. and horchata. treatments make me crave sugars.

so i didn't get on the road right away, but Flyingfisher doesn't mind. whenever i get here is whenever i get here.

and the revs were playing, so we all got to watch it together on the big TV, which was nice, even though they couldn't pull out a win.

and then Flyingfisher and i took a little field trip so i could learn where to find the church. i have not skipped church since the first time i went. sometimes i have to fall in with another congregation, but the idea is simply to be among people who are gathered for worship.

that, and i also needed change of a twenty, so we stopped at a place that was still open and i got a cream cheese brownie. i am a sucker for cream cheese brownies.

Flyingfisher laughs and wants to know: what else am i a sucker for?

she is full of mischief. there is much to love about Flyingfisher. tomorrow maybe she will come caching with me a little even though she's busy packing to go to germany.

you know, even these days, when i say or hear "germany" i hear it the way renee used to say it way back when and we all made fun of her for it.

d'ya remember? super-diva? captain tritone?

anyway, maybe she'll come out with me; something easy because my knees hurt.

gah. i've been up now for almost seven hours and it's time to go to bed.

this seems like so long ago now. maybe i should have known better. maybe not.

see you in church.

three sisters

i live at the edge of a large flat wetland. on one side of my road it's flat for about four miles; there are natural swamps and beaver ponds and such. on the other side of the road rises up a ridgeline. not oxbow ridge; the one before it. but it is the spine of the beautiful green mountains.

there are three trees at the top of the ridge, larger than the others. i keep thinking htat someday i will go up there and find them, just to be with them. i went once; it's much easier to see the three of them from down here. up there, it's hard to see the trees for the forest.

anyway, the clouds are hanging low, right down to the top of the ridge, and therre's that fantastic sunset wherein the sun is wedged between the land and the low cloud ceiling. it is a green you could fall in love with and the sky just behind and above ranges from lowering grey to that beautiful transitory red that you can't quite name or identify. you can't get it to sit still.

i went up there a long time ago to look for the sisters but instead (and this is rather complicated) i came down on the verge of falling in love.

"i know you are out there", i said, or at least this is a pretty close paraphrase of what i actually said.

"i know you are out there, and i know you are nearby." soon after that there were two of us here. and very soon after that every argument in my house ended with "and when do i get to have a dog?" and some time passed. more time passed, and there was isabella and there was bob, and if you're listening at all, DJC, i have no idea how i could have brought you along on this part of the trip. and i was talking with bob the other night and maybe i'm wrong, but i don't see any way i could bring along anyone who doesn't get bob, so i'm preparing to be single for a loooooong time.

and i know, i know, you thought there was someone else, but it wasn't who you thought it was, not by a long shot.

so i'm just killing time, a little. what i'm doing is NOT telling you exactly what's on my mind because (and i know this will surprise some of you) there are some things even i won't write here.

tuesday evening the craschos and i went to run our usual 5k, even though i'd had treatment in the morning. it took me over an hour to run a 5k. and we ran into the qseekers there; turns out they always go, but we'd never known them.

but anyway, i was slow. and it was painful. i got a lot of muscle cramping. but i kept on going, which i kind of took as a metaphor for my life in general. you can take a thing like that, though, and offer it up to bob. you can ask for the strength and courage to keep going. i have that coin in my pocket to remind me.

please strengthen my hands and steel my soul. give me your work to do. inform and instruct me; let me be your agent.

i rode wednesday and so did the crashcos and rumblestrip. i have no earthly idea what moved rumblestrip to take up racing mountain bikes, but i'm thankful for it. rumblestrip sees me so often when i'm in bad shape and sometimes the worst shape that it is a great blessing to let her see me in that venue. mountain bike racing is what changed me, made me worth saving, so it's good to have her see me that way for a little while.

the Flyingfishers are leaving very soon to go to germany for the world cup; it is a moment i have dreaded. what will i do without Flyingfisher for that long? i have no earthly idea. it's a concept i have been carefully avoiding since i found out about it. i'm really not equipped to think about it.

and d: go ahead, you have earned it.

extricated

extricated!

i was extricated after one lap. and given a little talk about how i should have registered as a beginner.

but last year i won sport; you're not supposed to bump down.

gah.

anyway, i was wrong: the state championships have moved AGAIN and i think they're at mt. snow, home of both nationals and the world-class, planetarily famous naked crit.

they're serious about that. it's a standard short course dirt crit in which you are allowed to wear only socks, shoes, and a heart rate monitor. if you are a woman the crowd will boo you if you try to wear your transmitter over your nipples. not that it should make that much difference, unless you have little to show anyway, in which case i don't know what the point is.

i don't know any of this firsthand; i have never been to mt. snow for any races, clothed or otherwise. the crit sounds to me like an excellent way to get dirt and sticks in places where you might not want them.

i ride what is called a "relief saddle", so the idea of riding a dirt track is all the more daunting to me.

i first found out about this august event while i was on the lawn waiting for my start at the eastern cup one year and this woman i didn't know came tearing up to me , announcing that pictures of her from the naked crit had just been posted online.

i'm stuck there. my friends are all backing slowly away, making no sudden moves. and i'm getting an education.

anyway, i think it's been three whole days since i was suicidal; that's quite a thing. today i had a moment in which i was uncomfortable and i am so accustomed to simply falling back on suicide thoughts that i couldn't cope. didn't know what to do with it. what could i put in its place?

boggles the mind.

tomorrow my brother in law will come pick me up to take me to the hospital. i am listening to They Might Be Giants, only the coolest band on the planet. i have to go talk to bob now. you come, too.

standing in the need of prayer

tomorrow is the coyote hill classic; it just happens to be the vermont state championship. i just happen to be the defending champion, so i feel obliged to show up and defend.

find your own darn links.

the reason i am the defending champion is because last year i was the only qualified applicant; there were no other vermont residents in the middle aged women's sport class.

and it was a horror show, too. five minutes before the sport class start the sky opened up and it poured. the trails are technical enough when they're dry; roots and rocks do not become easier to navigate when they are moist.

anyway, if you're following the story, you know that i've been sick for a long time. you know that i have been in for ECT and that it's making me tired and wiping out my memory.

if you're paying attention enough, you also know that i always carry a coin that rumblestrip gave me; it reminds me to have courage or at least to ask for it in my prayers.

tomorrow i will need courage and strength, balance and stamina. i'd be lying if i told you that i truly don't care about the race result, but i am not hopeful of being this year's champion. still, there's the possibility of another attendance anomaly.

more than anything, though, i want to finish the blasted thing. it's a challenging six mile loop and i have to do it twice. i hope above all things that when i come unbiked i will not go over the bars. there's no good way to endo. once i went over the bars at a speed slightly in excess of thirty-one miles an hour. i probably should not have to tell you that it was painful.

so i hope that when i fall tomorrow (and you will notice my use of the word "when") that i will fall sideways onto a soft landing.

i know that some of you pray for me; i will appreciate very much your prayers tomorrow. i'll be wearing the green uniform, riding an aggressive-looking red full-suspension bike (the rocky mountain ETSX-30, in case you care).

if you've ever been on relatively new hiking trails, you have an idea of what the course looks like. roots and rocks. loose dirt. trail kind of narrow. easy to hook a bar or catch a pedal.

i'd like it very much if you could see me strong and balanced, fast and smooth.i had quite a few words with bob about it today and i think it helps. i rode some things i would normally be afraid of. and got off and walked some places i would normally be stupid enough to try to ride.

i'd ask you to wish me luck, but i hope to create something better; i hope to be carried in bob's Own Hand.

this evening i went to Mass at st. denis in hanover. it was beautiful and i was struck by how much i have not been good or trusting or obedient, how much i have not listened to bob's voice, even when i was being Spoken To in no uncertain terms. i have fought what help i was given.

maybe tomorrow i'll be ready. it's late and i have to take a shower and have a few words with bob. i will ask for courage and strength and balance. not just for a couple hours tomorrow.

i want to get better.

kielbasa and kraut

that's what's for dinner: kielbasa and kraut. only tonight it's not the usual sauerkraut; for some reason while i was at the store i picked up new kraut. similar, but different. not as salty. sweeter, but still plenty tangy. and i just happen to have some green & black's 70% dark chocolate, which i washed down (as may become habit) with strafford dairy chocolate milk.

the green & black's is good and dark, astringent on the tongue but yet a little fruity, and it folds right into the sweet creamy flavor of the chocolate milk. it's better than, well, let's just say it's good and leave it at that. it's been a long time and my memory just isn't that good anyway.

i have the chocolate left over from dinner last night with rumblestrip; it was still in my cooler this morning. had i been kind or generous or even polite i might have sent the remainder of the chocolate home with rumblestrip, who made the tunafish sandwiches.

ordinarily i am not a fan of the tunafish sandwich and in general i prefer my tuna to be uncooked, but when rumblestrip proposed it i was put in mind of a tuna sandwich that okillezzzz made once and i was predisposed to enjoy it. i was not disappointed. now i will add rumblestrip to my list of people Who Can Make a Sandwich.

while i was with rumblestrip last night i just happened to have been going on about the topic of really good sandwiches and kind of got stuck on this one in particular.

rumblestrip is good and kind and patient and tolerates me going on and on about long-gone sandwiches and other Things That Matter Not One Bit In The Larger Scheme Of Things; this is only one of the reasons to love rumblestrip.

i know that when i am with rumblestrip i am fond of pointing out to her traits that qualify her for exceptional geekiness; she wears the label "nerdy" as a badge of honor but the truth is that rumblestrip is very, very cool. she is loyal and true, thoughtful and compassionate, a sharp thinker, an articulate writer, and a musical workhorse.

we were out for a paddle on shelburne pond and at the end of the day rafted up the boats and had a little picnic in the late day light. i could not tempt her into visiting this geocache.

probably just as well. it had been a very hard day for me. you might categorize as a Very Bad Day any day in which you find yourself on a park bench at the burlington waterfront uncontrollably crying. which is how i spent part of my morning with my mom.

"i'm done", i kept telling her. this is a very sad and fearsome thing to be telling the mother who loves you so. but my mother is very brave and heard what i had to say and then took me to a very nice lunch and a little light shopping at city market, which made me think of k and this cache on a much happier day and in spite of everything i was able to laugh a little.

it was still pretty grim when i got to bert, though. and rumblestrip could sense it but we did not talk about it for a long while. sometimes it's just good to be with someone who knows without having to talk about it.

my plan had been to finish out the day and then make my exit. but on the way home rumblestrip had a couple things to say that kind of stopped me in my tracks; we talked about bob and she asked me to tell her about this trip, which is when i had the courtesy to notice the presence of bob in the universe anyway.

by the time we got the boats unloaded i was crying again. it has to be difficult to be a close friend of mine; you're not obliged by familial ties, and what good am i? i was still crying when rumblestrip left me to go home. that has to be hard.

here's an excerpt of what i wrote her:

it is the crying of a beast, wild and out of control, as if my soul is being ripped out. i do not know how you stand me, but then you keep saying things that suggest that i am actually of value to you and it boggles my mind.

i keep you in this horrific yo-yo state where you never know what to expect and sadly it's only one step removed from what it's like to be me (...)

i was going to do it today.

i knew exactly how. and when. but you had to go and open your mouth and i couldn't bear to do it (...). my choice or not, you would still be very sad.(...)

the problem is that i'm not cold enough.

i still don't feel secure in the knowledge that i'll live until morning; it is a very strange uncertainty, a special kind of hell. and i demand to know what bob has in mind; what's the point, bob? o, creator of the universe?(...)

and just for reference, you are eminently qualified to speak to me about matters of spirit. you know it's true.

now i'm going to go follow directions: i'm going to have a hot shower and i'm going to light that candle and have a few words with bob. of course the decision to live or not, to be obedient to the will of bob, to accept that great love and light, all of that ultimately comes down to my choice. but your wishes, your opinion figure into it whether you want the responsibility or not. you cannot make it so or not so. you can tell me over and over that i am important to you, that you prefer me living, that you would be sad without me.

it never comes down to just that but i hear it and it colors much of the rest of what i hear.

i am not well enough to picture my own joy in living returned to me (i had it once, i'm certain), but i can imagine how happy you will look on that great glorious morning when i can stand well and healed, out of danger. sometimes it's enough to live on for a few days.

i am thankful for the care you take with me, the help you give, the easy companionship. i am sorry for the hard parts. you are a better friend than maybe i deserve; demand that i give you my best.

it's late. the horrible, dreadful morning and its attendant discomfort will come too soon.

love.


and in the morning my mom came to get me and we went to the hospital. i was so tired out i was bearly able to stand up, and mom had to take me by the arm a lot to get me across the lobby and down the hall, through all the familiar steps to ECT and of course there was some trouble starting the IV and they had to call the IV nurse but i had my ipod and was barely conscious anyway so i cared little about the new additions to my really big collection of bruises.

and don came as usual to give the annoying little exam and as usual i couldn't tell him what the date was. i never know; it's not information i use lately. i haven't been to work since 21 december and i haven't been keeping current with my geocaching logs, so outside of special events, i never know the date. and i've never been able to count backward by sevens.

but they get me into procedure room #4 and everybody is very pleasant and they remember without me telling them that i like them to replace my earbuds in my ears after they're done with the treatment, and they begin sticking on all the electrodes for the monitors and i would almost sleep through it-

first they pump in the lidocaine, and that stings a little. they've changed the electrode placement from right unilateral to a kind of compromise bifrontal, so they don't use the caffeine. they drop in whatever they use to help with the post-procedure headache, and then the muscle relaxant and the sedative.

and it is so painful going in that i scream and cry and the last thing i remember before passing out is flailing and clenching with my free arm.

when i wake up in recovery i'm groggy and i stagger from bed to wheelchair to car, but i'm starved since i haven't eaten since dinner (always NPO after midnight) and my mom always takes me to mcdonald's where she gets me a mcgriddle, which i choke down. i do pretty well with the swallowing today; often it's hard for me to get anything down.

when we get to my house i write some checks (thanks to my mom for organizing that) and i put on a hat and gloves even though it's warm out and crawl into bed, where i sleep until two thirty. i haven't been able to read my bible lately (new living translation), because i don't have the concentration and i have a little rule about not reading scripture while under sedation, but i keep it with me while i sleep. i need the gloves or at least a glove because i keep the coin rumblestrip gave me in my left hand. i have to wear the hat to keep the green goop from flaking off on the pillowcases.

my mom has been making sure that i have clean sheets, which i would not be able to manage, left to my own devices. i adore crisp sheets. and while i sleep, blissfully oblivious, my mom does laundry and dishes, mitzvoth of first magnitude.

only thing bad about that is she insists on flattening my underwear before putting it in the drawer. i prefer to simply crumple it and stuff it in, which actually makes it easier to manage. i have just the one underwear drawer. five drawers of socks (which i DO sort and roll together), but only one underwear drawer. and if it's all flattened and organized, it's hard to root around in there and get out what i need.

tomorrow i'll pack my bags and rack my bike and head off to fairlee to preride sunday's course. i don't expect to do well because i've gotten fat and out of shape but the coyote hill classic is the state championship and due to an attendance anomaly i am the defending state champion. i don't expect to win, but it would feel really, really bad not to know how it would turn out. i am not a big fan of "what-if"s. so i have to go defend my championship even though i'm going to suck toast.

the great thing is that i'll get to stay at the Flyingfishers' and if i get really, really lucky, Flyingfisher will stay home from the game and we'll watch it together on TV. over the summer, immediately following my breakup, i spent a lot of time at the Flyingfishers', and i've missed it.

it's getting late. morning keeps getting closer and closer and i still have to have a few words with bob. there's going to be some hard riding to do. it's raining and my boys are out there singing. it makes me smile, 'coz every time Flyingfisher drives by she rolls down the window to listen. she loves those little guys.

tonight i found myself standing tall, walking down my front hallway and up the stairs. Flyingfisher asked me how i was feeling and i couldn't rightly tell her; i'm so uncertain of it. do i feel better? is it just a break in the pain? i have spent my day since waking this afternoon Very Purposefully Keeping Busy. this is what i wrote to rumblestrip:

for a while i had the opportunity to be in an outpatient program run by (name), who used to listen very carefully to what you had to say and then kind of make an analysis of the important points, beginning to help you know how to proceed.

"the challenge is..." , she'd say, and usually hit the nail right on the head.

so i woke up this afternoon with a nearly unprecedented degree of suicidality. i have decided Not To Think About It; even passing examination of how i feel leads to the howling, yammering maw wherein not only must i find a way to die, but i must do it NOW, without fail and before i have time for anything else.

so this is what i'm going to do: i'm going to force myself to write the logs i've been putting off until i felt better. i'm going to watch some stupid TV. i'm going to keep at some level of activity and i am not going to suicide.

i am also going to briefly notice and then put away my resentment: it is a terrible thing for anyone to have to endure. when every simple activity, every tiny thought has to be a purposeful avoidance of suicide, something has gone horribly, terribly wrong.

i do not have any idea what it is that bob has in mind for me with this; i am finding it difficult to inhabit the thought in which a just and merciful God could require this of any of His people, even if i can fathom a God who would use punishment as a tool for correction.

the challenge, as (name) would say, is simply to continue breathing, to carry on the simple activities, and to refuse to relinquish love for and trust in bob.

wish me luck.

just the facts, ma'am.

i was going to wait until i had some kind of cohesive thoughts to put together, but really what i have is a bunch of bits that are unrelated except that they are part of the general narrative.

friday i went in for ECT and after dr. r. got me all hooked up for the EEG and ran the test strip, he rolled up the strip and put it in my pocket. so here's what it looked like: "blink your eyes three times and then hold them tight shut".

and then afterward my mom took me home so i could sleep and of course i couldn't drive, so mrs. crashco came to pick me up in the afternoon when i woke and we went to perellie's for a buffalo chicken pizza and a little light dessert.

then we went to rumblestrip's concert, which we liked quite well. i was familiar with much of the music on the progam, which puts me at liberty to be attentive to the performance instead of having to wrap my brain around new material as well.

i got to see some people i hadn't seen in ages, and the crashcos and i got to marvel at the level all this rain has brought the floodwaters to. the crashcos brought me home and it was interesting to see where my road was more washed-out than it had been earlier, and we speculated on how long the road would remain open.

my plan was to wake in the morning and go to the geocaching event in barre, but as the night wore on with less and less sleep i became less inclined to go. i'll spare you the details about the night horrors, but i will tell you that it really sucks to wake up choking back vomit.

i finally got to sleep sometime after the sun came up, but then around the ten o'clock hour the phone calls started coming in.

my friends are bulldogs and will not let go. they promised to harrass me until i agreed to get in my car and come down. and happily rumblestrip, who had already decided not to go, came with me for company.

we were both on some sort of schedule; rumplestrip had another concert at which to be, and because i had a bike race in the morning i needed to find a place to attend a saturday afternoon service. i have not missed a week since i started going to church, and although i prefer my home congregation, i have been among congregations spread pretty wide across new hampshire, vermont, and new york. people of God are pretty easy to find if you're looking for them, and all i wanted was to go and be among those gathered for worship. call me a radical or call me sloppy, but i do not believe bob is all that fussy as to which day of the week you show up.

bob's time is now and ever, eternal.

anyway, on saturday afternoon there aren't that many choices. and in addition, crashco and i needed to go inspect and preride the racecourse and this church is nearby and Mass is at 5:30. so i got into some presentable clothes, bike clothes on underneath.

and i went. i wonder how badly i stuck out as non-catholic?

and then crashco and i went to have a look at the course. all you really need to understand about it is that it has been raining for twelve days and that the ground is wet. where the trail is usually packed, it is loose. where the trail is usually loose, it is like pudding. places that usually sport hardpack and grass still had grass, but there was a lot of standing water. all the exposed rock was slippery.

lovely conditions if what you like is hub-deep quiver-sucking mud and spongelike waterlogged turf. i don't run very well on these conditions anymore, so it was not enjoyable for me. i say "anymore", because when i started out it was a very rainy summer and i learned to ride in that nonsense; i was a mudder.

but no more.

so. i managed to get some sleep and i managed to get to the starting line in time to go. it was close, but i was there. and i finished the course. i had to; i'm the defending champion and although i harbored no illusion about the likelihood of actually winning, i knew that finisher's points will go a long way toward defending my championship.

and it IS my championshp to defend.

i will not trouble you with all the details, but i will tell you that it was a difficult afternoon. i came in DFL (= "dead last") by such a large margin that by the time i came up the chute, the awards ceremony had concluded and the last of the cars was pulling out of the parking lot.

i've been DFL in a lot of races. some of them are my proudest moments. so don't try to pin what happened next on my placement:

i came home with a crushing, heaving depression. i came home wanting to give up completely. "i'm done", i said to no one in particular. but i was ok with it. it's ground on which i'm familiar.

but later on when rumblestrip called, it clipped me off at the knees. i could not stop crying.

so now i'm hung up on The Great Ambivalence. people say that the ECT is helping, but i don't see it. and i hate the treatments. a sense of dread is accumulating in my soul and the sorrow is visceral.

some days i remember some of what happened; today i can't remember anything. and i still feel weird, like i'm still partly drugged. there's probably a good reason why they don't like you to drive on days when you have treatment.

put your head down and go

that's what eric gave me as advice before my first time trial. it was good advice, although if he'd been giving me advice about how to ride a TT in huntington, he might have included some advice about not getting run over. sometimes you say it like a stupid see you later: "hey, don't get run over!" but in huntington it has special meaning because the locals will run you over if they get the chance, or at least they'll honk and laugh if you fall off your bike, and they will threaten to kill you. they have to lift their knuckles off of the ground in order to shake a fist in your general direction, but once they remember the muscle sequence, they manage to make it intimidating.

of course, i have just unfairly categorized the population of an entire town, some residents of which have two eyebrows that lie quietly side-by-side as opposed to one on top of the other. i wish to excuse rumblestrip, her husband, pets, and any neighbors of whom she is fond from unnecessary hyperbolic vitriol. come to think of it, i wish to excuse the enmans as well.

as for the rest of you, when we stop getting death threats, i'll reconsider my position.

but of course, tonight we weren't riding huntington; we were riding jonesville, which is long and although it is flat-ish, it is quite painful if you do it right.

my legs are sore. my lungs have been sufficiently punished. my squishy bits hurt. and out on the course i was passed by four riders and then kicked it up and passed that one rider back.

now, at these venues, you actually hear people say "allez, allez", and it's what i said to crashco as he passed me, but then when i overtook him again i remembered enough french in addition to "allez, allez" to make some peppery suggestions about what he might go do with himself and i called him a name besides.

he doesn't care. he faces this kind of abuse with equanimity and the knowledge that somewhere in my bag i have brought him a very fine, very dark bar of chocolate. i got some for myself, too, which i am washing down with chocolate milk from the strafford organic creamery, drunk right out of the bottle.

besides this sort of decadence i also am not as practiced at the quick change as i used to be, and therefore mooned the southbound lane of interstate 89 for a while, because they're too distant and moving too fast to hear the traditional call of "if you don't want to see my butt don't look over here!"

the official figure is in, too: i am fifty (FIFTY!) pounds heavier than i was the last time i rode this or any race course, and despite the extra weight i think i rode pretty well. while i was standing waiting for my start, the train went by. route 2 is very close to the tracks here, and i stood, watching. remembering. knowing and being thankful that it's not my train. maybe it isn't my train, but my hand goes to my heart and then i lift it heavenward, and the engineer waves.

do you ever find out things about places and then wish you hadn't? there's a place on route two (i won't tell you exactly where, but the racecourse passes over it) where the brother of a man i used to know was assaulted. he was struck in the face with a tire iron and didn't even live to see the inside of the ambluance.

i can't ride that stretch of road without wishing i didn't know. can't avoid it now, but i can say a prayer for the repose of his soul. couple other things, too. i saw bert today and i don't think he's ever seen me when i'm feeling well. i'm not sure, but i think this was day four. and as i was just telling rumblestrip, i know where the gratitude is properly placed.

so i'm going to go have a shower and wash this day off of me. tomorrow i'll go have some ECT and mrs. crashco will pick me up at my house. we're going out for pizza, probably with the Tharaglebs and we're going to go hear a concert that rumblestrip is in.

besides standard road dirt, there's always a lot i have to wash off of me at day's end; i am never as kind or gracious as i want to be. i rarely get to the end of the day and feel as if i have used every breath, every gift to best advantage. i can hope, though. every day i hope to be a better person today than i was yesterday. i have better luck some days than others.

rumblestrip says she doesn't really believe in luck; so okay, some days i create better circumstances than others. i'm going to go have a shower and light a candle. i'm going to have a few things to say about gratitude and forgiveness. i'm going to trust bob to help me sort it out.

you have a good evening, too. i hope you'll be a better person tomorrow than you were today, and i hope you'll recognize where gratitude is properly placed. i hope you'll be kind and gracious, and that you are treated gently. i hope that while you're riding the roads that you don't get run over, and that you always manage to keep the rubber side down.

we tell each other that sometimes on the start line.


stay safe. go fast. and i hope that when you cross the finish line, you are pleased with your ride and that you can look back on it and know you chose the right gears, stayed out of the potholes, and used every breath to push hard and ride fair.

remember, it's rubber side down.

jawbone

sometimes, if you get very lucky, you can point to a specific juncture where you can see quite plainly that someone's life is better because you were there. i wish i could tell you this story, but it verges on being not my story to tell, so instead, i'm going to tell you about an unrelated thing:

on my desk is a jawbone. i don't know what kind of animal it belonged to; a carnivore, by the look of the teeth. there are four teeth still in it; aggressive, pointy-looking teeth. the large canine at the front is loose and comes out if you just tip it upside down. it is oddly satisfying to do so. it has an interesting sound and feel, taking it out and puting it back in. the bone looks rough and pitted but it is smooth and cool to the touch. it is difficult to refrain from comparison with my own jaw, of roughly the same length.

yes, well. anyway.

tonight for the first time in a long time i feel happy. i think it bears repeating. tonight for the first time in a very long time i feel happy. not the lifting of sorrow as when there is something pleasing or comforting in the midst of everything else; happiness. real and unqualified.

it has been so long and it feels so strange that for a while i could not puzzle out what it was. i could not identify it. realistically i can't expect it to last; i can't expect months of illness to evaporate in one afternoon and i don't know that i would wish for such a thing either, it's so unnatural.

but i was looking up into the sky and i noticed five birds flying, chasing and looping and dodging as only happens in the spring. and even though it was raining, a neighbor dog sat placidly motionless. he's a husky or some other such sled dog breed; what does he care for the weather? a little light rain? piffle.

in time i will heal. i know this as certainly as i know anything. yesterday was hard on me. in church there was a baptism and it was Barbara's last sunday and i was so overcome with emotion that as Barbara walked down the aisle after the service i could not hold my balance and fell right over.

of course the well-meaning folks had to call rescue. oy. this, i don't need. there is nothing so unusual about me getting all emotional and falling over. i wish i were tougher, but i'm not. once i passed out cold at the end of the bruckner motet "christus factus est", and that was back in the pre-conversion days.

so instead of going caching with me as planned, rumblestrip came over and made us a little light lunch and read to me and kept me company for a while while i had a nap. sometimes there is no better comfort.

anyway, my brother-in-law (bless his heart) came out to pick me up to bring me to dinner at pauline's. probably a bad idea for me to drive. we have never had a bad meal at pauline's, but we were a little hacked that they gave away our favorite table. i am not in the habit of eating red meat and i am no longer in the habit of drinking coffee. i don't care; i went right ahead and had both.

now it seems like weeks ago.

bob spoke to me this afternoon. i don't imagine it's like being even a minor prophet, but bob left me with a message for other someone else who just hasn't been listening well enough. the trick, apparently, is to be able to recognize that You Are Being Spoken To. bob speaks all the time. you just probably don't notice. do me a favor: don't make me have to take down messages. i have a hard enough time trying to remember my own phone number.

remember this: you are bob's own precious child.

and i'm coming up the stairs and all of a sudden i want to rededicate my life, to offer it up with love and gratitude, and i want to be worthy of it. now if you'll excuse me, i have to go light a candle and i have to wash the green goop out of my hair.

maple barley malt

i'm not in bed, sleeping. it was a hard day, and it's not over. what i'm still doing up is baking bread; i have not baked bread since before saint patrick's day, when things went very, very bad. the full moon has risen over my mountains and my peepers are out, singing. "good luck, boys", i always tell them. i know that the girls always go for the good singers. i could fall in love with a species like that.

the bread that's rising (too slowly) in my kitchen is my own recipe (as always). it is maple barley malt, a hearty, heavy, dense nut brown sweet bread made with (just as it sounds) barley flour, barley malt, and grade b dark maple syrup. it is heavy and takes for-honkin-ever to rise.

i bake a lot of bread. i have adopted a practice where i bring fresh bread to church: a loaf is reserved for the pastor. a loaf is reserved for you if you are rumblestrip or if you won the right in the auction, but there's always an orphan loaf, unspoken for and left quietly in the back of the sanctuary. people are shy about taking it.

tomorrow it seems very important to bring bread because tomorrow is the last sunday before Barbara goes on sabbatical; for a while an interim pastor will be receiving "her" bread. i do not think the interim pastor knows this yet.

tonight while i wait for the bread to rise i'm drinking malta goya, which is an oddball carbonated beverage that i think you have to develop a taste for.

now that the bread is in the oven i can relax a little. tonight i saw the revs play and that was good. blame the Flyingfishers if you need to assign blame for it, but somehow i care about how the revs are doing, and it's "revolution", not "reverends".

yesterday i went geocaching in the rain with Flyingfisher, and we met some lovely and interesting cachers but it was weird because they treated me as if i'm famous, which is a little awkward, if satisfying. as a child i always wanted to be famous, but i thought i was going to be a famous musician rather than a well-known finder of ammo cans, so it's a little strange.

it rained all day today, too, and i had an appointment with Barbara partly just to talk to her and partly to help clear out her office and i can't really explain why, but i cried a lot. i'm going to miss Barbara powerful much.

and it occurred to me (and maybe this is an asshole thing to think) that maybe part of my rush to suicide was based on a desire for her to do my funeral. once she leaves there'll be no suicide until she comes back, if that's an operating force.

and, see, even though funerals are partly an occupational hazard for her, it's kind of a crappy thing to wish on someone and i'm sorry for it. i love her. and then i think: "when it's time for my funeral, i hope you're too damn old."

and i was stopped in my tracks for a while by the sound of the train going by. Barbara asked me about it: did it still get me?

well, yes. but it's not my train. happy news for her. and you, probably.

me, i'm waiting for that bread to come out of the oven. then i'll be able to wash this day off of me and crawl into my bed (which i love) and spread out like a liquid. i'll be nameless and faceless, insensate.

i will light my candle and have a few words with bob. i had a few words with bob this afternoon when i was down at the church (i never can resist) but there's always something new to say to bob. lately and perhaps unaccountably, i am especially grateful for the color green and i say a prayer of thanks for it.

i ask bob to watch over Barbara and rumblestrip (whose proper name gets a capital letter, but you will never see it here) and deanne, whom i have never met or even spoken to, but who i hope has gotten a good job, and k, whom i miss and i'm so thankful for them and the Tharaglebs and the crashcos that there isn't room here in my chest for it all. please, bob, watch out for skipper and fritz and linda and betty and the Flyingfishers and all the oggs.

i'm too overcome and maybe if i have a hot shower i'll be able to stop crying and maybe rumblestrip will laugh, but it's saturday night so i have to shave and i think i'm going to sleep right up until it's time for church. i haven't even marked up my hymnals even though i have the bulletin in my pocket but bob always understands, and if i get very lucky tonight i will sleep.

i'm maybe not entitled to sleep the sleep of the righteous, but i'm doing my best over here to make my life mean something and to simply get through the rough patches, so maybe i'm entitled simply to let breath pass in and out of my lungs without rasping thorough the crying, and maybe i'll get lucky and just sleep a quiet sleep.

often i don't really want to die; i just want respite. so please, bob, if ever i did honor you, if ever i did love you, bring me a gentle, dreamless sleep. Flyingfisher says i have courage. love is good enough for me. i love you; goodnight.

sprung

today i woke up at home, in my own bed. this is no small thing. the hospital bed was uncomfortable and confining and there was no air flow and too much light. my room at home is the kind of green that when i first saw it, i thought "this will have to be painted over." but then the first morning i woke up in there i thought: "i am never painting over this"; it made me so happy to wake up in there on a sunny morning. my bed is in the window nook. i slept there all night in beautiful, blessed darkness, with only the sound of the peepers to serenade me. there were crisp fresh sheets and once i navigated the attendant hazards (very emotional day; unsteady on my feet. somewhat dizzy, more than usual) i crawled in there and spread out like a liquid. it was lovely.

i woke in the morning just in time to go see dr. n, and afterward i stopped at city market where i purchased a delightful if not entirely nutritious lunch of a green & black's 70% dark chocolate bar and a bottle of very excellent chocolate milk from the strafford organic creamery.

then i went to see bert, and after that went home to get my road bike and get suited up for a ride. for no particularly good reason, i decided to ride from jonesville up to rumblestrip's house and back, and from there i got into cambridge in just enough time to time the GMBC time trial up there. kevin was a little put out that i hadn't responded to his email, but "hey, it's my first day out of the hospital" seemed to be a good enough excuse.

last night for the first time in a long time i was able to light my own candle at evening prayer, and the Very Dear and Loyal rumblestrip was present with me and stayed until i was ready for bed.

thank you to all of you who have lit candles for me during my absence, and deanne, i very much appreciate your continuing to do so. it was such a joyful thing to go to choir practice that when i got there i picked skipper right up off the ground and wouldn't put her down.

we had a little impromptu ceremony in which they cut off my hospital bracelets.

it is good to laugh again.

fifteen minutes

there are fifteen minutes left to my day. fourteen. at a quarter to eleven, my nurse will come by with my HS meds: seroquel, ambien. no benzos, because benzos taken after eight will interfere with tomorrow morning's anesthesia.

twelve.

it's been a hard day; tomorrow they're releasing me and although i have a good plan for the day, it's enough stress for me to feel bad.

i develop a distinctive and unpleasant odor when i am under significant stress. i do not smell good tonight.

shep 6 has been a hard place to be all day; there has been much yelling, shouts of people in pain, yips and barks that are regular and startling. they are the sounds of people in intense pain. it sounds like their souls are being ripped out, string by string.

six.

but tomorrow after my ECT i'm expected to sleep for a while and then i'm getting sprung. my mom will come and take me home.

wednesday is choir practice and of course i won't be permitted to drive, so rumblestrip will pick me up at home and bring me. afterward, she'll return me home and stay with me a while; if i get really lucky she'll stay with me until i fall asleep.

four.

i love rumblestrip as well as i love anyone. i try not to be too mushy because it spoils my curmudgeonly persona that i work so hard to project, but rumblestrip can get away with calling me by a term of endearment that i not only tolerate but enjoy.

but YOU can't call me that and hope to live to tell about it, not unless you're rumblestrip.

well. i'm overdue for my meds, which means i'd better find my nurse. i'll have time later to go on about rumlestrip in rhapsodic fashion.

and you know i will, too.

Good Night, Good Friends.

cinco de mayo

it's not really a holiday i observe, but i couldn't resist having an entry with the date on it.

it's been quite a day up on shep 6.

this morning the IV meds were less painful than usual, but it took me honkin' FOREVER to wake up in recovery and when i got back upstairs nobody had ordered my breakfast. usually my nurse orders it up for 1030, so it's here when i get back and i can choke it down before i crash.

so today i was already crashed when breakfast came. and i was still crashed when lunch came. and every time someone came and knocked on my door i woke in a panic. you know, the kind of waking up ou do where you scream and fly vertically right off the bed?

you'd think that after a half dozen wakings like that they might just let me sleep. you'd think it, but you'd be wrong.

i have the feeling back in my right arm, but i have small red splotchy patches.

and the other patients are driving me nuts. the TV is too loud, and for some reason somebody likes the canned auto-play music on the keyboard. there's a woman up here in what appears to be moderately advanced stages of dementia and sometimes at night she weeps and howls with such ferocity that it sounds like her soul is coming unhinged.

there are a couple of other patients who are, uh, intense and challenging to be around. one has a lot of anger that's partly political and another has echolalia. go ahead. look it up.

there's one patient who is quiet and no trouble at all, except i think he has a little crush on my mom.

i have a really brutal headache; one that is accompanied by both visual and olfactory "enhancements". there are bright, sparkly lights and i keep getting that feeling you get when you get water up your nose. on top of that, the headache is so bad that it's actually nauseating. i have felt sick all day. and none too stable on my feet, either.

the weather was nice, though. breezy and sunny on the porch. and when my mom came to visit, she took me for a walk outside and we looked at some pretty sculpture. we like sculpture.

well, my nurse du soir has tracked me down and given me my night meds, so i don't have long before i pass o

what fresh hell is this?

that's how dorothy parker used to answer the phone.

very stylish, i think.

here's my complaint du jour:

large portions of my right arm have gone numb and the place where yesterday's IV went in hurts like all get out.

the current operating theory is that swelling at the IV site is choking off a nerve.

so i'm going to go refill my ice bag.