moving day

Rich is smiling, alert, enjoying his buttered bagel while I have the same; talking about friends and the day's plans.

Of course, there's something a little odd.  He is sitting at the edge of the hospital bed, catheter draining, and I'm on the commode.

"Very comfortable," I say (the seat is down).  "Functional furniture."

"Dual purpose," Rich says.  "You don't have to get up."

I laugh.

"I'm glad I'm still funny," he says.

Then the slide starts, the pretend-normal scene shifts.  His brain is being squeezed and a frantic rat-a-tat begins of I have to take my pills...shave, I must shave, shower...where's the bathroom...

And for the next three hours I'm up, down, running to the kitchen, the bathroom, answering the phone, soothing him sometimes softly, sometimes not.

Then.

"I love you so much," he says.  "I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry."

We wait for the ambulance to take him to the Hospice facility.  We wait two more hours.

This is familiar, I say.  Pre-surgery, post-surgery, all the medical visits -- those days all I could do was wait, fast, and think.

And now, nearing the end, we sit together.  Waiting for Rich's move to his final home.  Fasting because we're both ravenously hungry but too tired to eat as much as we need.

Now, I'm eating a late supper, of whatever.  I left Rich to come home to sleep, to shower -- but not think because then I will look for Rich but I won't find him.  Only his shirts and shoes and pants that he will never -- no, I won't think.

Rich calls me.  Says he's tired, is going to bed, needs to find all the e-mails he sent that are missing.

"I'm so lonely," he says.

Me, too.

Candace

greensprings

We are now owners of two burial plots in Greensprings, a natural preserve disguised as a cemetery.  We will be on a hill, with evergreens on one side and an aspen grove on the other and, this time of year, wild strawberries and daisies and other field flowers I haven't yet met.

This is one of three "natural" cemeteries in the country, permitting no embalming or concrete vaults or $10,000 hardwood caskets.  Its motto:  "Preserve a Forest.  Plant Yourself."  For us immortal-minded humans -- what a deal.  No matter the errors and omissions of our lives, in the end we will do good.  We will feed other beings who will carry us to places unknown, eternally.

But "we" is morphing into "I."  When today I tell Rich I will be getting rid of our old, now urine-soaked mattress, he asks about its replacement.

"I'll do a futon," I say.

He says nothing.  

Tonight he will be sleeping on a freshly delivered hospital bed that goes up and down and is impervious to bodily malfunctions.

"It's so small," he says to the Hospice nurse, here for her weekly visit.

"It's just for you," she says.

He says nothing.

But he might not be using the bed much longer.  I'm hoping -- we're hoping -- we win a bizarre sort of lottery, the one for a hospital bed in the local facility.  We're told we have a good chance, maybe even as early as Friday.

No, not "we."  He has the chance.  He will be moving out, for eternity.

Candace

the best

We weren't like the rest

We were the best.

I can't stop shaking as I write this, and I can't even remember the other lyrics or the name of this song or the melody, but when I heard it last week, it hit hard.

Because it is in the past tense, and I knew:  That is us -- now.

Rich is leaving, and no one can offer him anything more than comfort.

"We don't talk about comfort in yoga," says James, my teacher, after I tell him I'm comfortable while in some odd configuration.

"We ask, 'is this taking you deeper?' If not, it's time to move on."

Together, Rich and I squeezed a lot out of what, at times, seemed like a very odd configuration (what does a physicist really do?) and I know Rich often wondered what I really do.

Together, we went deeper than I could ever have gone on my own, learning how to love and how to forgive and how to rejoice knowing that there was one human being to whom I mattered above anyone (for no reason).

And I cry because I'm not ready to move on.  

We're still going deeper, and this time to the most remote place of all.

I'm learning how to let him go.

Candace

practice

I know why students revere their yoga teachers.

"People think we do magic," James says, watching approvingly as I kick my legs over my head into halasana.

But he knows, and I know, it's something else.

"Practice," he says.  "That's all."

Six months ago I couldn't do this.  And if it were not for James, I would never be able to do any of what we are doing during today's two-hour private, as he puts me through a sequence created by B.K.S. Iyengar to create "emotional stability."

I don't think about what I can't do.  I barely remember that once I had a fear of backbends, that for fifteen years my back could hardly bend in any direction, and that hanging upside down is (truly) the most relaxing position imaginable.

What if I were still gripped by pain and fear?  How would I reach my natural state of emotional ease?

I could not.  And this is why James and his teachers deserve awe and reverence (though they would brush aside any of this).  Because they're not showing us magic, but teaching us a practice for life.

Not that magic doesn't tempt.  As I drive home, I still have microseconds of fantasy.  When I open the door, Rich will be dressed in tie and braces, walking briskly, going to work, all energy and brilliance...no.

"I fell," he says, leaning on his four-legged cane.  "I was on the floor for thirty minutes."

And he took one of his pills at the wrong time.

He's fuzzy, and getting fuzzier.  This is what chordoma does.

I couldn't imagine any of this six months ago.  Rich couldn't, either.

But we're practicing.

Candace

a clean refrigerator

At first, it is one spill that needs wiping up.  The coffee, from several weeks ago.  That accomplished, wouldn't it be nice to clean the whole refrigerator shelf? So I remove the cream cheese and tofu, bagels and flaxseed, dig out from under the kitchen sink the dried-up scrubbing sponge and mostly-full tin of Bon-Ami, and start to clean.

Ah, much better.

But then -- look at those crispers!  Filled with wilting turnip greens, just waiting to be compost...hmmm, how old is that beet...there's the oregano!  And there's the humidity control -- where did that come from?  

By this time, there's no turning back.  The top shelf must be cleaned too, and the sides, and when the food is returned it is now like with like -- soymilk on one side, milk and kefir on the other -- and then I notice the kitchen tiles near the fridge are covered with remnants of old food and must be swept, and I circle wider and wider along the floor until every stray morsel of cat food is removed.

Perhaps I have found my religion.  

Last week, a wise teacher appeared, a dancer/yogi coming in the guise of "housecleaner."

Cleaning, she says, is her spiritual practice.  And she is right.  A clean toilet and shower -- and refrigerator -- can repair the soul.

This morning, I knock over the soymilk.  Ohshit.  

But by now I'm a pro.  Quickly, the sponge and paper towels soak up and wipe down the excess, the milk is pushed aside (scowling, I imagine, at this faux milk crawling its way) and calmly begin my breakfast -- until Hospice calls and the mowers arrive and Rich awakes, fuzzy and wobbly.

Ah, well.  Souls break.  Milk spills.  Cleaning happens.

Candace

comfort and control

A quiet rhythm.

Rich works, mostly from home.  His new accessories, replacing the once ever-present tie and suspenders, are a four-legged cane, a walker, two urinals, a raised toilet seat, and, in waiting, a chair for showering and a chair for transport.  Plus steroids and a few other pills to limit the steroid's potential damage.

None of this cures, but comfort and control are worth something.

"A good day," he says, as we sip some wine and begin eating the first of the season's greens.  

His symptoms, we agree, are moderately stable.  He left leg and arm still function, as do bowels and bladder, although numbness of hands and feet is frequent.

I straighten.  I cook.  I empty urinals.  I enjoy visits from friends, occasional cafe au laits, and sleep.

I don't think much.  Not about the past or the future because the present moment, I finally grasp, has everything.  

And I can't control Rich's desire to control or my inability to comfort.

Still.

His efforts, and mine, are worth something.  

Maybe even everything.

Candace

what remains

May I be I is the only prayer --

not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong.

-e.e. cummings

not strong, not beautiful...hmmm...what's left?

I which is more than I. the unseen I, the I-without-limits, the I that is always there but not seen until beauty descends and muscles grow limp.

not a pretty I.  an angry I, a frustrated I, an I mumbling ohshit ohshit ohshit.

what sort of prayer is this?

the only prayer that remains.

Candace

blow torch

Our refrigerator needs a blow torch.  

This week, a previously sedentary jar of maple syrup decided to do a headstand, emptying itself onto its savory neighbors.  Mustard and horseradish weren't inspired to follow, but a day later a mostly-empty cup of a week-old latte did.  Why I'm saving the latte (it's still on the shelf) isn't clear.  I tell myself I will use it in baking a honey cake, which I haven't made for...a year, at least.

And the syrup and latte have solidified.

I say this with no shame.  In a world upside-down, this not only makes sense, it is comforting.   It is the "normal" that is bizarre.  You're worried about that?  Get a life!

Still, there are visitors.  I don't want them to fall over debris or get assaulted by dust mammoths.  So, for the first time in my life, I hired a housecleaner.  Schmutz can be put in its place.

I'll take it.

Candace