1978-1989 + Waterville, Maine
What follows are several stories of a radically different tenor; parental discretion advised. Be forewarned.
Following our separation and eventual divorce, I was a long time wandering aimlessly in the erotic outback. I was alone and terrified to re-enter the thorny thicket of expectation, disappointment, and failure. There were forays, but when I heard, "I don't care that much about sex", I couldn't get past the 'that much'. These forays left me feeling like Custer at Little Big Horn: "Why the *#^* did I ever come the #@** down here in the first place?" I simply gave up.
My fantasy life was sensational; I could hardly keep up with my over-crowded production schedule. I was often exhausted from the pressure of scripting ever more titillating scenarios. Perpetually deprived, I grew skin crazy. My flesh ached for that soothing and exciting sweet velvet feminine touch.
Like Frog in that Alabama bar with Sid, I was headed nowhere. I lay endlessly alone in bed in the dark, longing and fearing. Night after night I felt as if I were suffering a root canal without anesthetic. My would-be message to the women I saw around me was repeated over and over in my dream scape: "I could make it without you, honey, if I just didn't feel so all alone".
There were medical 'breakthroughs': surgically-installed metal, the space-age plastic implants and a pump device to inflate Erectoid like a clown making balloon animals. There was something called the Stuff Method (no kidding). There were mediation techniques:
She: "Close your eyes, sit very still, clear your mind,
feel the throbbing sensation of the blood flowing to
your penis."
Me: "Ohhmm...Hey, what the fuck! Somebody stop that
god damn dog from humping my leg. Now, what the hell
were we doing?"
I even went to a faith healer, but that was all over when God figured out I was only in it for the hard-on. I was like a perpetually hungry, lonesome diner without a fork.
As I say, sex was definitely on my mind, but in the closet, so to speak. Pandora's Closet, secreted safely away with my other psychosocial unspeakables:
Sex was like a safe deposit,
hidden away in Pandora's Closet,
some day I'd have to try the latch,
and free my E for a bit of snatch.
About then, as unseen virtual particles danced in and out of existence in the vacuum and trillions of neutrinos and possibly neutralinos passed unimpeded daily through the Earth, my body, our atmosphere and into outer space, the Great Quantum Flow delivered up a most improbable concatenation of four variables at one and the same time and place: Jean, Papaverine, Doctor Agnes and Yours Truly.
Jean was a personal care attendant I had hired to come to my home to perform certain highly personal nursing services, such as bed transfer, condom care, bed baths, and stretching exercises. I quickly came to anticipate our evenings together like the convict waiting for his biennial conjugal visit. A touch from Jean set my skin on fire. She was untamed, leggy, and all over country.
She stood about 5'7" and was thin, with long, brown, big hair. She peered at me through luminous, hazel eyes, beautiful regular white teeth, and a curiously coquettish, yet childlike face. She had that look that said, "I've seen too much and forgotten too little." I found her alluring, like a vamp from the movies of the thirties and forties. I was drawn to her as was Othello to Desdemona.
We were constantly touching, rubbing against each other in my 10' 8' plain pastel blue bedroom, with its low ceiling. We talked, everything lent itself to intimacy: Two lonely, sensual people in a tiny, quiet space where we had skin-to-skin contact, comfort, and trust.
Jean: "My dad left when I was six. My mother drank and
dragged me from bar to bar. i had no friends. She died
when I was 14. I grew up too fast. I never had a childhood."
Me: "I fell off a ladder. I lost my marriage, my home,
and my dream. I went to law school and became a lawyer.
Now I'm alone."
She: (in that smokey Marlene Dietrich tone)"You're
different. I never met a man like you."
Me: (voice trembling) "I can't wait to see you. I think
about you all the time."
I was headed back into the thicket.
I was practically hyper-ventilating, waiting for Jean's next visit. She didn't disappoint. She wore skin tight blue jeans, black leather boots, and a low-cut, translucent powder blue blouse. She was a dead ringer fro Shania Twain. Each chance touch that evening was 10,000volts of nuclear excitement. Adrenaline and sexual tension transformed my room into Chernobyl-on-the-brink. Tonight had to be it.
When the work was done, she stood by my bed whispering good night. I gazed into her 'Go ahead, I won't say 'no' eyes'. I felt lost in the haze of her delicate ways, reached out, and drew her to me. Unresisting, Jean was in my arms and in my bed. "I've wanted this a long time," I said. Jean responded, "Me, too."
We became bed mates. Make-out bed mates, that is:
Shania: "Oh, oh, ah, ahhh...what should I do now?
...how can I?...Can you...what if I..."
Your author: "No, that won't work. I can't...sorry."
She: "That's OK. I understand."
"I understand" was a jarring echo of, "That much". I had to find some way out of Pandora's Closet.
What happened next, fortuitous and felicitous as it was deserves a drum roll and a grand oratorical flourish. "When in the course of human events...", "Friends, Romans, Countrymen..." As Lewis and Clark had stumbled upon Sacajawea, who rescued the Corps of Discovery, I came upon El Dorado. Actually, as we'll see, it's fairer to say El Dorado discovered and delivered me. For just then the Fates, those magnificent invisible couriers on the breeze brought me wind of PAPAVERINE (peth-PAV-err-even).
The dictionary papavrine doesn't impress"
"A crystalline alkaloid derived from benzyl-isoquiinoline,
that constitutes about one percent of opium, that is
made synthetically from vanilla...is used chiefly
as an anti-spasmodic because of its ability to
relax smooth muscle..."
That chemical jargon, however, translates into a miracle erectile creator. [This was 1988]
I thought, "This is just the thing for our dilemma." There existed, however one huge potential deal-buster: papaverine must be injected directly into the penis. In case you don't quite get that, that's a needle in the pecker. I'd do it if i could, but I could, I wouldn't need to. That's got to be a conundrum of paradoxical proportions, from the 'there's always something' file.
I ruminated, 'How am I ever going to ask Jean that?' I had to at least try.
I started stammering, feeling like I was walking the plank, at sword point:
Me: "Jean there's this stuff that will allow us to be more intimate.
I mean, you know, go all the way, have sex like men and women do."
She: "Good, let's do it."
Me: "Well the thing is, you'd have to inject me. I mean, into my
penis."
That dropped into the conversation like a stink bomb at a dinner party. Jean never flinched. "No problem," says she. "Oh man," says I, "I've got real sex as far ahead as the eye can see!"
Let us digress a moment to consider the philosophical implications here. Does it seem likely that God (so-called and as generally understood) would have knowingly brought together Jean, Papaverine, Doctor Agnes (whom you'll meet in a moment), and your author so i could have quadriplegic sex out of wedlock with an employee? I believe that is highly unlikely. St. Augustine would be scandalized speechless.
Coincidence? The odds of this particular confluence of improbabilities occurring to these particular people at this particular time in this particular place had to run: (1) Meeting jean--1 in 8, (2) Jean willing-- 1 in 10, (3) Me willing--1 in 1, (4) hearing of Papaverine--1 in 12, (5) Finding Agnes--1 in 5, (6) E responding--1 in 2 = 1 in 9,600 chances. Statistically, that is . Aquinas would never hear of it.
Payback? Did the facts owe (as my friend Michael would say)? Were my labors as chronically unsatisfied sexual sparring partner about to be rewarded? If so, the equation, beginning on Day 1 of the Fall, must be: 6 shit scenes + 15 piss episodes + 8 bladder infections + 2 bladder operations + 1 anterior vertebral surgery + 1 divorce + 2 1/2 years of depression + 11 wheelchair years + 4 years of loneliness + 6 years misery + 15,000 tears = 1 shot at the carnal title.
Sisyphus? Was I doomed to Camus' Existential nightmare? Was I fated to roll my metaphoric boulder up that hill, knowing its return to the bottom was preordained? Would all those alkaloids and vanilla set me free?
Through an extremely improbable chain of events that validates the farthest reaches of Chaos Theory, involving a chance dropped remark to a variable stranger, an ad in a never before seen magazine, several unlikely phone calls, a guy who knew a guy who knew a..., I got hooked up with Doctor Agnes over the phone, sight unseen. She gave me a script for my very own Papaverine, $75 bucks for a tiny vial and about a million of these darling bright orange mini-syringes.
The Doctor said I had to come with my partner to her medical office in Augusta to be counseled, trained, and injected. Thinking, 'Winning the billion-dollar Multi-State Power Ball Lottery has got to be worth at least one day off work,' I took a very personal day for unmentionable activities of a medical nature. I was not up to the task of telling my female boss I needed to rediscover my erection in order to have sex with someone who worked for me. I couldn't even begin that conversation. Administrative matters done, Jean and I drove to Augusta on a dark, cold, and rainy weekday afternoon.
The Doctor's office was one of many in a suburban medical complex. The complex was sprawling, neo-modern efficiency with cream-tinted bland stucco walls and overhanging, black faux-Spanish tile roof. Jean and I checked in at the ubiquitous reception desk with a gum-snapping, uninterested clerk like two skittish, unmarried teens at a cheap motel.
We took our seats among the coughers and hackers and attempted to disappear from what felt like inquisitive eyes. 'Likely couple. I wonder why they're here. Syphilis, I bet, maybe gonorrhea, or worse,'
"Mister and Misses Gill, the Doctor will see you now." 'Yeah, Doc, great way to start,' I thought. We were led into the inevitable, brightly-lit, avocado-tinted mini-exam room. This cramped space was replete with fake-leather exam table, jars of tongue depressors, and cotton balls. This was the same unimaginative decor one sees all over, remarkable only for its unerring capacity to be absolutely uninteresting.
Left alone, we waited, whispering nervously how strange it feels to be here doing this. We waited some more, gazing blankly at the wall chart of some poor bastard who's going through all the stages of stomach upset, ending with the flame-thrower ulcer and spontaneous gastric combustion. Uh, oh, I heard footfalls sounding doctoral.
In sweeps our short, portly physician who seems more like a modest matronly middle-age maiden aunt than doctor. Aunt Agnes the Anchorite. She, however, was all business. "Get him up on the table, pants down, present penis." There was nothing frivolous here. Jean and I snapped to attention.
We were both put off by the abrupt Doctor and the hermetic sterility of this room, which was all alcohol, autoclave, and antiseptics. This felt like an utterly strange, Alice Down the Rabbit Hole situation. We half expected our Doctor to return as the Queen of Hearts. No such foolishness. With all the brisk efficiency of a German brain surgeon, Agnes inspected, injected, and exited. Jean and I were impressed. I was thinking, 'Jean, we'll soon be three; thee, me, and E.'
Woe the while, nothing happened. No blood flood, no anti-spasmodics, no erectiles, and no penis rising. Excitement and anticipation became frustration and disappointment, and eventually resignation and despair. As time passed, I sensed the light from our window of opportunity growing dimmer and dimmer. That afternoon seemed to drag on and on in slow motion. Our precious time became, as the Bard said, "Like a foul; and ugly witch, [that]...did limp/So tediously away...". The air in that miserable little antechamber seemed to be a thick, gloomy fog destined to smother out our sexual fire.
Agnes came bustling back in and looked'er over. "Hmmm", she commented, and bustled out. The good doctor was visibly unimpressed.
Let us recap: I lay supine on a medical table in a sterile, impersonal doctor's office, with my pants down and my dick limp. I re-lived a decade of miserable, crushing sexual failures, while trying not to look into Jean's sometime come-hither eyes. She self-consciously looked up, down, away, sideways, anywhere and everywhere but in my eyes. She fidgeted nervously, shifting from foot to foot. She cast intermittent, clandestine, hopeful glances at Flaccid Freddie, my want-to-be Erectiod. I thought, 'This is just like all the other *&#* times the *^#* thing didn't work I've got to get the hell out of here.'
But this time there would be no disappointment or failure. Jean and I were determined. The Flow was with us. We both got the same idea at the same time. We were two headlights simultaneously illuminating one dark and dreary landscape. With unspoken agreement, Jean commenced ever so gently stroking the intransigent member, which came alive, bright red and rising. Lazarus re-born. Whether this was benzyl-isoquinoline, the vanilla, the one percent opium, or just our fierce, not to be denied hunger, I don't know. Payback was; I was now a contender. That was enough for me.
In swept Agnes, who caught us in the act. She looked things over, uttered an approving, "Well, now, that's more like it," and swept back out.
By then the pace had definitely picked up. We were busted. Jean and I had been discovered with one naughty, metaphoric hand in the cookie jar. The excitement and sexual tension, the bliss of seeing my swelling scarlet penis, and Jean's relief and admiration, elevated our sexual stratosphere. The fog, the witch, and the limping were gone. Jean gazed down, licked her lips, and made very suggestive oral gestures. Too excited to even think of the risk, "Go ahead," I said. "It's my thing," she replied. I thought, 'I'll die right here from pure happiness.'
Back in swept the proud Doctor, obviously impressed with her stunning success. She beamed as if she had just discovered a cure for cancer. "OK'" she said, "that's it. You can go. Just remember, if you have that hard-on (she said erection, but I'm thinking HARD-ON) for four hours straight, you've got to go to the emergency room to have it irrigated." I thought, 'Holy shit! Four hours, did she say? I swear she said four hours. Four hours. I could open up a fucking business!' Elated and in a hurry to get my newly found treasure home and put to use, I forgot to ask what 'irrigation' meant.
Back home, Jean had to leave. 'This is no way to begin this exciting exploratory enterprise', I thought. It was a lot to expect: an enchanting excursion to that magical Undiscovered Country in the middle of the afternoon after several hours with Aunt Agnes. That would have been sufficient to quench my ardor, were I not a man.
There I sat, two hours, three hours, stiff as a...well, you know. I had a get real session with Erectiod: "Now Dude, we've got to cut a deal. You've got to behave and go away for now. I'll treat you right, no self-wanking, nothing from my half-written do-it-yourself manual, "The Joys of Solitary Sex", or that involves rubber gloves, KY gel, or penicillin. Come when I call. Please, no four hour scenarios. I need the blood. You need your rest. I need your rest."
I was seriously starting to worry, wondering what irrigation was, and picturing the scene in the emergency room. Three and a half hours. I was getting ready to head to the hospital, gathering up my stuff, and wondering what happens to a guy with a four hour hard-on. Could it be permanent? Wow! Think about that! I suppose it would get old pretty quickly. After all, I've only got so many platelets.
Three hours and forty minutes. I was heading out the door when Erectiod finally started to let go. Three hours and forty-five minutes! can you believe that?! 225 minutes, 13,500 seconds. Whenever my mind goes blank, I blame E for so selfishly tying up all those red corpuscles and Vitamin K all that time.
Jean had a serious auto accident that very evening and was laid up over a month. I had to get another personal care attendant. I couldn't wait to see Jean again, for many reasons, not all related to E. When I finally did, she told me she was going back with her old boyfriend.
Those once adorable petite syringes lay exile in a dark, out of sight drawer, unused. That $75.00 vial sat in my refrigerator, mocking me for what seemed like a long time. When I used it again, it had lost much, but as we will see, not all its potency.
This is a wonderful horrible interlude. Like the bends I had probably risen too far too fast. At least I had been erotically alive for that sweet, short time. I had run up and down the emotional ladder.
I accepted that Jean was gone. I was bound to come up for air sometime, right? Right?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
DEEP WATERS SUBSIDE
1989 + Waterville, Maine
I decided to seek psychotherapy. I needed someone who cared, someone I could trust, someone who would be invested in my well-being, for the long haul. I had not encountered anyone to date who was qualified. I did not want to be coddled or talked down to. I sought someone without false optimism or easy answers. I wanted someone who could see my evasions and excuses for what they were. This therapist would be willing to challenge me and approach these sessions rigorously.
I asked around of friends and was directed to Ahmed. He agreed to meet with me to assess the possibility of working together. He was up front with that. I could tell right off he didn't waste time or mince words. I felt both hopeful and fearful when we first met.
He was in his mid-forties and from the Middle East. He spoke precise and impeccable English with a slight accent. His black hair and warm complexion framed his self-assured face that bespoke non-arrogant confidence.
It was those eyes! So deep, so quiet. I felt as if I were looking down into a silent and beautiful well without bottom. You could get lost and found in those eyes. They held me spellbound and focused at one and the same time. I knew immediately, beyond thought, there would be no getting around this man or those eyes. I tried.
For instance, early on I came fairly bouncy into one session, thinking I had everything figured out. I was fully charged as I laid out in detail my thought and conclusions. Everything was in its particular category and proper compartment. There would be no need for future sessions. I had created an analytical House of Mirrors. It was as though I had discovered a shortcut through the labyrinth of my being. I acted as if I had successfully reached the exit.
Ahmed sat immobile. His gentle eyes followed mine as he respectfully let me have my say. He did not interrupt. His non-judgemental appearance lent me the impetus to say more than I intended. When my ramblings were done, I expected him to congratulate me. He spoke almost in a whisper, clearly enunciating each word. "You'll have to find another way", he said. That was it! With those six words, Ahmed had shattered my House of Mirrors. I felt deflated and perplexed. I trusted him explicitly and without question, so I gave no argument. The session was over.
I went home wondering where I had gone wrong. What was it about my approach that had failed the test? Like a novice laboring over a Zen koan, I racked my brain, taxing my thoughts to the limit. Like Frog's fixation on Dylan's lyrics, I set myself to know this one thing. One morning I awoke, answer in hand. Ahmed was nurturing me to openness, emotional honesty, and deeper feeling. Less thought, more depth, much as the Zen master to the student.
In his loving way he was challenging me to contact my heart directly, without evasion or diversion. As the months passed, I learned to do this more. Ahmed was putting me in immediate touch with my pain, which had accumulated for so long. I was growing up, again.
On a cloudy, cold, and drizzling late afternoon, I dragged myself into our meeting. I felt I was back at square one. All my progress was lost, I thought. I felt utterly miserable. By this time i was feeling comfortable enough with Ahmed that I kept nothing back from him. During this session, I poured out a full hour of non-stop black misery, all the while sobbing uncontrollably. My eyes grew soar and red. Ahmed sat there like a holy man, respectfully silent, compassionate, and present. When I had ended, he simply said, "You have a strength in your heart that is unique". I wasn't sure what i had expected, but it wasn't that. I left.
Those words stayed with me; they were like a life jacket to a drowning man. I knew then that Ahmed trusted and honored what I hadn't seen. In one of my dark and despairing hours, he had peered directly into my heart. He saw the resources I had failed to see or honor. Like Hindus and Buddhists are instructed to do, he had addressed and paid homage to the Divine he perceived in me in ten simple and easily understood words. I had been shown an example of love in action. Ahmed had presented me the precious gift of himself. Galadriel's glass was to be used in Frodo's darkest hour, when all other light had failed. These words of Ahmed helped light the way through some of my darkest days to come.
Eventually I came through depression and despair to a fuller and deeper life. Due to this great man's wisdom and skill, I had, in some sense arrived.
Great people, such as Ahmed, Juanita, and Cesar Chavez, prompt us to appreciate and respect the Divinity in ourselves and those around us.
I decided to seek psychotherapy. I needed someone who cared, someone I could trust, someone who would be invested in my well-being, for the long haul. I had not encountered anyone to date who was qualified. I did not want to be coddled or talked down to. I sought someone without false optimism or easy answers. I wanted someone who could see my evasions and excuses for what they were. This therapist would be willing to challenge me and approach these sessions rigorously.
I asked around of friends and was directed to Ahmed. He agreed to meet with me to assess the possibility of working together. He was up front with that. I could tell right off he didn't waste time or mince words. I felt both hopeful and fearful when we first met.
He was in his mid-forties and from the Middle East. He spoke precise and impeccable English with a slight accent. His black hair and warm complexion framed his self-assured face that bespoke non-arrogant confidence.
It was those eyes! So deep, so quiet. I felt as if I were looking down into a silent and beautiful well without bottom. You could get lost and found in those eyes. They held me spellbound and focused at one and the same time. I knew immediately, beyond thought, there would be no getting around this man or those eyes. I tried.
For instance, early on I came fairly bouncy into one session, thinking I had everything figured out. I was fully charged as I laid out in detail my thought and conclusions. Everything was in its particular category and proper compartment. There would be no need for future sessions. I had created an analytical House of Mirrors. It was as though I had discovered a shortcut through the labyrinth of my being. I acted as if I had successfully reached the exit.
Ahmed sat immobile. His gentle eyes followed mine as he respectfully let me have my say. He did not interrupt. His non-judgemental appearance lent me the impetus to say more than I intended. When my ramblings were done, I expected him to congratulate me. He spoke almost in a whisper, clearly enunciating each word. "You'll have to find another way", he said. That was it! With those six words, Ahmed had shattered my House of Mirrors. I felt deflated and perplexed. I trusted him explicitly and without question, so I gave no argument. The session was over.
I went home wondering where I had gone wrong. What was it about my approach that had failed the test? Like a novice laboring over a Zen koan, I racked my brain, taxing my thoughts to the limit. Like Frog's fixation on Dylan's lyrics, I set myself to know this one thing. One morning I awoke, answer in hand. Ahmed was nurturing me to openness, emotional honesty, and deeper feeling. Less thought, more depth, much as the Zen master to the student.
In his loving way he was challenging me to contact my heart directly, without evasion or diversion. As the months passed, I learned to do this more. Ahmed was putting me in immediate touch with my pain, which had accumulated for so long. I was growing up, again.
On a cloudy, cold, and drizzling late afternoon, I dragged myself into our meeting. I felt I was back at square one. All my progress was lost, I thought. I felt utterly miserable. By this time i was feeling comfortable enough with Ahmed that I kept nothing back from him. During this session, I poured out a full hour of non-stop black misery, all the while sobbing uncontrollably. My eyes grew soar and red. Ahmed sat there like a holy man, respectfully silent, compassionate, and present. When I had ended, he simply said, "You have a strength in your heart that is unique". I wasn't sure what i had expected, but it wasn't that. I left.
Those words stayed with me; they were like a life jacket to a drowning man. I knew then that Ahmed trusted and honored what I hadn't seen. In one of my dark and despairing hours, he had peered directly into my heart. He saw the resources I had failed to see or honor. Like Hindus and Buddhists are instructed to do, he had addressed and paid homage to the Divine he perceived in me in ten simple and easily understood words. I had been shown an example of love in action. Ahmed had presented me the precious gift of himself. Galadriel's glass was to be used in Frodo's darkest hour, when all other light had failed. These words of Ahmed helped light the way through some of my darkest days to come.
Eventually I came through depression and despair to a fuller and deeper life. Due to this great man's wisdom and skill, I had, in some sense arrived.
Great people, such as Ahmed, Juanita, and Cesar Chavez, prompt us to appreciate and respect the Divinity in ourselves and those around us.
response to deep waters
I have not been responding to or commenting on the chapters I've been lately posting--I didn't have much of a reaction to the tip-over section--mostly "Jesus, that must have sucked." And recalling him listing, jaw clenched, eyes focused, from side to side, in his chair as he followed me around the lawn and gardens on my land in Ohio as I proudly pointed out this flower bed and that fruit tree--what an adventuruous, precarious vantage point.
This last section--I feel that I really need to say something about, if only because the sweetness with the 'vow to my Dearest'.--I am melted and ache and think of his final act--and exactly what that might have been, or his final thought. I do believe my Dad passed away in peace, that he ceased struggling and could do that with impunity as a result of having lived so ruggedly and honestly. His father died that way, having taken care of all the loose ends, quietly, and with dignity. My dad said, repeatedly, that's the way he wanted to go--and he did, as opposed to 'Not to Be'---which is almost impossible for me to imagine, and thank-the-fates for hitchhiking angels.
This last section--I feel that I really need to say something about, if only because the sweetness with the 'vow to my Dearest'.--I am melted and ache and think of his final act--and exactly what that might have been, or his final thought. I do believe my Dad passed away in peace, that he ceased struggling and could do that with impunity as a result of having lived so ruggedly and honestly. His father died that way, having taken care of all the loose ends, quietly, and with dignity. My dad said, repeatedly, that's the way he wanted to go--and he did, as opposed to 'Not to Be'---which is almost impossible for me to imagine, and thank-the-fates for hitchhiking angels.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
DEEP DAYS (2) THE WILLOW DON'T BEND
On one particular Saturday, the afternoon was cold, overcast, and lonely I was, as usual alone, sitting in the living room, gazing absently out of the row of windows. I saw a bleak future in my world gone wrong.
I was out of work with no prospects and little, if any, self-respect. I felt left, as if everyone had sailed off, purposefully leaving me behind. I felt, in the words of Thomas Merton, like a "a dead thing, a rejection".
In a strange twist of fate, from the depths of this loneliness came an unexpected sense of anticipation, as if there were something for me to do. Something important was in the air. As I had done countless times before I turned to my beloved touchstone. I intuitively knew there was resolution there. Some people turn to the Bible, some turn to a favorite poem or other work of art, and some turn to family or friends for solace, comfort, and peace. I turned to Dylan"
"I just reached a place,
where the willow don't bend..."
This song is a mournful a ballad about moving on in the wake of what I take to be a failed relationship. Like a dirge of parting, replete with sorrow and loss. Sounds just like me. When I heard this refrain, the pent-up feelings of months of depression, despair and sadness washed over me, leaving me vulnerable and defenseless. Our family was scattered, in a number of ways. Our Wellington dream was dead. Our love shattered. Our hopes were blowing in the wind. There was no escape. There was no where to go. There was nothing to do. TV, talking, reading, and going somewhere all seemed pointless and absurd. I had struggled my way to another crossroad.
I simply sat in solitude, waiting. I floodgates of emotion opened. This was the polar opposite of the onetime Hoover Dam, yet directly related. I wept. The force of the pain of loss could not be contained. Cleansing tears flowed without restraint down my face, like drizzling showers drip down a weeping window pane.
TO BE, OR NOT
April 1986 + Augusta, Maine
I was passing yet another interminable day at the VA clinic at Togus where I had been a psych inpatient. This facility was just outside Augusta. It was a very bad day. Very bad.
Togus, like many VA medical units around the U.S., is not a particularly good place to be when dealing with intractable quadriplegic health problems and confronting the ultimate dilemma. Like Hamlet, I was faced with the question whether to go on living in an emotionally bleak and hopeless landscape, or not. Simply mustering the internal resources to get out of bed in the morning was like climbing Everest. Every day was another day in Stalin's Gulag, without reprieve.
I had become, not literally by any means, a Flagellant. Those medieval fanatics who lash themselves with whips and wear hair shirts to atone for sins, real or imagined. The big difference, obviously, is that they can stop whenever they want. I believed I was caught in a trap of my own making. I was not up to chewing off my foot to get loose.
Like Lear holding his dead daughter Cordelia in his arms, I felt bereft of what made life worth living. Guilt, regret, anger, sadness, and remorse hounded me, like the Flagellant's sin.
Over the years I had suffered from nightmares in which I was trying to run from a menacing, knife-wielding evil presence chasing me. I would be unable to move. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get away. The blade got closer and closer. I felt doomed. When i would awaken from the dream, shaken and terrified, I would be safe in my bed, relieved beyond measure.
Waking and dreaming were now one. The seemingly malicious being was my own mind and emotions turned against me. There was no safety or relief. Nothing offered a long-term way out, other than not to be.
During this miserable period, I had had one medical problem after another, as you'd expect from one for whom life seemed such a cheap commodity. Pressure soars kept me in bed a week or more at a time (imagine a week in the Gulag in bed). Dangerously swollen limbs and dramatic weight loss were sure signs of lethargy, which is anathema to a quadriplegic. All parts of the descent to...Where? What? That, as Hamlet said, is the rub.
Back in Togus, I sat in an impersonal, glaringly bright room, readily recognizable to anyone who has ever been in any hospital waiting room. This one felt especially empty, like a room where one feels invisible because of the sheer indifference of everyone around you. Whether i was there or not did not appear to mean anything to anyone, including me. I wanted to scream, "Oh my God am I here all alone?" I was, after all, just another medical mouth to feed in an unending stream of veterans, all wanting something last week. Its not like I was General Powell or General Patton.
I waited, looking down. I looked down a lot. I was afraid to encounter another human being eye to eye. I was ashamed to feel so weak and in such apparent need. I was sick of feeling naked and utterly vulnerable. No secrets left to conceal.
I would have been reading a book, but even this innocent pleasure had been stripped away. I couldn't focus or didn't care. When you're facing not to be, in this context, not much matters. I vacillated from fragile confidence to search disillusion to deep depression to profound despair. There existed for me but one inevitable outcome: not to be. I was terrified, yet I always made it through.
I returned to the Catholic Church, seeking refuge, guidance, or comfort. I spent hours in silent prayer, yearning for some glimpse of hope. Something, anything, week after week, confession after confession, during communion and solitary anguish. My dark night of the soul pushed me to different territory, as I desperately searched for help.
One of the things that helped me pull very temporarily through was a visit to my VA shrink. He was a corpulent and imposing figure with an over-sized head. He was inevitably attired in a close-fitting, old tweed jacket and unironed baggy pants. His longish brown hair was unkempt. He had a wry, sour demeanor that said, "I'm only here because I have to be here".
This man, in his mid-fifties had apparently treated too many Post Traumatic Stress Disordered vets. He seemed worn out. I am still puzzled how seeing him helped. Perhaps it showed I was at least trying.
His small, dark, and couchless office was hidden away in one of the cavernous recesses of this otherwise overly illuminated bland landscape. Here existed a medical doctor and psychiatrist with walls displaying a lifetime of education and achievements. These were the real thing, I surmised, unlike Mr. Drudge's questionable wall ornaments.
I wanted urgently to tell him about this Voice that was always dogging me, like an Army drill Sargent constantly yelling in my face what a weak, sorry excuse for a human being I was. This Voice was for me an unanswerable precursor of my death, telling me my end was assured, inevitable, and imminent. The doctor didn't seem interested--my greatest, most pressing fear was of no consequence in that tomb he called an office. For all that, he seemed cheerful enough during my five minute session, as witnessed by this witty repartee:
Doctor: "So, Mr. Gill, how are you doing?"
Me: "Jeez, Doc, I'm really depressed."
Doctor: "Join the club."
That was it. He reached for his prescription pad, but as I was at that time trying to make my way back to at least a semblance of mental health drug-free, I declined. At that time, I believed psycho pills, capsules, powders, and shots compromised my capacity to determine my own well-being. Perhaps I was simply afraid of them. I held a dim view of those who let doctors tamper with their mental abilities. I regarded those folks as weak and passive:
I never believed in a pill,
that would do strange things to my will,
I looked down on those folk, but this was no joke,
now I never speak ill of the ill
I left his office wondering why I had ever gone there in the first place. Maybe it was helpful knowing the VA and this doctor cared, at least enough to make appointments for me. I usually left feeling a little better, which is saying a lot. I wasn't exactly Lazarus arisen, but I wasn't Lazarus in the tomb either. As I left, i thought how good it was to know there was a club of desperate and despondent depressives that would have me for a member.
Medication, yes, as the months went by and I saw no let up, I tried various medications. I guess I realized I was too close to something deadly serious not to at least give pills a try. I'm no martyr, nor a fool (I tell myself). At any rate pills were, at best, an all too temporary fix.
There was a frenzied run to an emergency room:
Nurse: "What can we do for you?'
Me: "Well, you see, I'm really freaked out here--
I mean depressed, and my VA psychiatrist
couldn't have cared less, unless he were
dead, of course. I don't know how much
longer I can hold on because I'm right at
my wit's end and if I don't get help soon
it may be the death of me."
A bit incoherent, you think?
This particular Nurse, who must have seen some hard cases, knew just what to do. Hearing the word 'death' and sensing my agony, she presented me forthwith to a psychologist/therapist. This astute and self-assured new-age youngster was in his middle or late twenties. He sported jet-black, shaggy hair. He had an obvious disdain for professional, or even presentable garb. His attire was random, at best. A plaid checked shirt with a tie unevenly knotted told me he would do the minimum, but no more in that quarter. He seemed idealistic and optimistic, like a hippie's son who had taken the parental flag and run with it.
I felt drawn to him, while at the same time envying his youth and good humor. He helped to pull me off the ledge, for awhile, using bio-feedback. He had a strange looking machine, with wires randomly situated. He hooked me up. I heard a slight buzzing sound and responded to several questions. He left. "What the hell is this?" I wondered. He returned with a printout and unsuccessfully tried to convince me I had strong mental abilities. I simply could not relate that to anything. I thanked him and left.
By this time I was out of possibilities. There was just nowhere to turn, nowhere to go, nothing to do, no future, no light, no hope. I faced an endless series of empty days ahead, joyless and comfortless. Absolute zero.
I waited aimlessly among the blind, cripples and crazy for my name to be called for something or other. The voice i had wanted to tell the doctor about, the Voice I was so terrified of, spoke to me from my deepest being: "Today is the day. You know what to do". I felt chilled in my core. I believed i couldn't descend any further. I had reached not to be. It was no Shakespearean play, dream, or metaphor. This was it.
Something beyond my conscious control consented without a struggle. "Yeah, today is the day. I knew it was coming. I do know what to do".
I had driven the road from Waterville to Augusta to Togus many times. I had picked out the perfect spot: a huge, jagged rock that protruded out of an embankment around a long curve on the freeway going north to Waterville. I had the perfect plan. I would release my seat belt, sped up to 75, and veer head-on into the rock. It would look like an accident. No one, especially Sarah, would ever know the truth.
I was resolved at last, after a bruising boxing match in which I had lost every round. I actually felt relieved; a great weight had been lifted off my sagging shoulders. This resolution was much like what you feel when someone else finally makes a critical decision for you that you just can't make for yourself.
I left Togus at long last. During this momentous visit, I had experienced the mundane and its polar opposite. Togus was an unlikely place for that. As the saying goes, 'When coming back to life, it makes no difference where you are', or something like that. I suppose that applies to leaving also, at least in the way I had planned.
I looked up. It was a clear spring day. The characteristic Maine April chill was in the air; a beautiful light blue sky the color of Frank Sinatra's eyes framed the day. I was reminded of many such days gone by that were once so full of promise, possibilities, and new life. I thought, "I'm never going to see this luminous blue Maine sky, or Sarah, or my family. How sad. Too bad it has to be this way".
My heart was very heavy despite the relief that passed so quickly. What was so strange, in hindsight, is that I felt no resistance. This, even though i was about to leave everyone and everything i cherished. I was crushed, yet resolved. Those who don't know this condition ought not to judge.
I headed back to the freeway. I saw a typical hitchhiker: mid-twenties, unkempt, and low-budget. I had bummed rides for what seemed like a hundred thousand miles. I recalled nights under overpasses trying to stay dry, freezing cold days in driving snow storms, and baking for hours and hours under the California sun. I had a soft spot for my careless kin; I had picked up many hitchhikers at this circle before. All of them had been going south to Portland. I would give this guy a ride to the on ramp, drop him off, head north, and execute the plan. I stopped; he climbed in. "Where are you headed?" I asked. "North, to Bangor."
I knew I wasn't going to take anyone with me into the rock. That was for me alone. I looked over at the hitchhiker. He was a most unlikely guardian angel. Sometimes salvation comes from unlikely sources. I silently pondered, 'You just saved my life, and you'll never know it'. Sitting next to me was this young, unknowing, and seemingly random guy who had single-handedly brought me back from the brink. This set me to wondering, 'What are the odds I'd come upon a north-bound hitchhiker on this day of all days, and just at this time?'
I was mostly quiet on the ride home, trying to ponder the imponderable. My unanswerable resolve and commitment to not be had evaporated in the time it took my hitcher to say "north". How strange, how simple.
As we passed the rock, I felt sick to my stomach and a mixture of profound awe and relief filled me. I let my Rider out at the on ramp to Bangor. I hoped there were many more of him to save many more like me. As he receded from sight, like the Hero riding into the sunset after saving the heroine and cleaning up the unruly town I sent him a silent blessing. Wherever you are, my hitchhiking Friend, THANK YOU and:
"May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
may you always know the truth,
and see the Light surrounding you..."
I thought long and hard about what I had almost done that day. Very disturbing questions demanded answers: What would this have meant for my loved ones, my Mom and Dad, brothers and sister, and my dear friends? And Linda, who had so intimately shared her life with me for fifteen years? Mostly Sarah. She knew my mental state far too well not to wonder whether I had purposely abandoned her for the last and forever time. Would I have permanently broken her then fifteen year old heart? What future would I have been condemning her to?
Would I have left her permanently in self doubt, maybe blaming herself? Would her sustaining, wonderful self confidence be destroyed, and she left prey to years of periodic depression, guilt, remorse? What of her life dreams, how would they have been effected? Perhaps I'm overstating my importance, but these and many other questions troubled my mind for a long, long time.
To this day, when I feel deeply depressed and out on a ledge, I am invariably brought back to safety by remembering Sarah, my beloved son-in-law Jeff and my beautiful grandsons Sam and Oliver. The circle of life expands. I am deeply grateful I am part of it.
As you can imagine this episode left me shaken to the very heart of my being. In an effort to stay off the ledge and protect my Dearest, I made a vow: "Whatever I do, wherever I am, whatever happens to me, my final act upon this earth will be for Sarah".
The light side emerges, the dark side recedes.
I was out of work with no prospects and little, if any, self-respect. I felt left, as if everyone had sailed off, purposefully leaving me behind. I felt, in the words of Thomas Merton, like a "a dead thing, a rejection".
In a strange twist of fate, from the depths of this loneliness came an unexpected sense of anticipation, as if there were something for me to do. Something important was in the air. As I had done countless times before I turned to my beloved touchstone. I intuitively knew there was resolution there. Some people turn to the Bible, some turn to a favorite poem or other work of art, and some turn to family or friends for solace, comfort, and peace. I turned to Dylan"
"I just reached a place,
where the willow don't bend..."
This song is a mournful a ballad about moving on in the wake of what I take to be a failed relationship. Like a dirge of parting, replete with sorrow and loss. Sounds just like me. When I heard this refrain, the pent-up feelings of months of depression, despair and sadness washed over me, leaving me vulnerable and defenseless. Our family was scattered, in a number of ways. Our Wellington dream was dead. Our love shattered. Our hopes were blowing in the wind. There was no escape. There was no where to go. There was nothing to do. TV, talking, reading, and going somewhere all seemed pointless and absurd. I had struggled my way to another crossroad.
I simply sat in solitude, waiting. I floodgates of emotion opened. This was the polar opposite of the onetime Hoover Dam, yet directly related. I wept. The force of the pain of loss could not be contained. Cleansing tears flowed without restraint down my face, like drizzling showers drip down a weeping window pane.
TO BE, OR NOT
April 1986 + Augusta, Maine
I was passing yet another interminable day at the VA clinic at Togus where I had been a psych inpatient. This facility was just outside Augusta. It was a very bad day. Very bad.
Togus, like many VA medical units around the U.S., is not a particularly good place to be when dealing with intractable quadriplegic health problems and confronting the ultimate dilemma. Like Hamlet, I was faced with the question whether to go on living in an emotionally bleak and hopeless landscape, or not. Simply mustering the internal resources to get out of bed in the morning was like climbing Everest. Every day was another day in Stalin's Gulag, without reprieve.
I had become, not literally by any means, a Flagellant. Those medieval fanatics who lash themselves with whips and wear hair shirts to atone for sins, real or imagined. The big difference, obviously, is that they can stop whenever they want. I believed I was caught in a trap of my own making. I was not up to chewing off my foot to get loose.
Like Lear holding his dead daughter Cordelia in his arms, I felt bereft of what made life worth living. Guilt, regret, anger, sadness, and remorse hounded me, like the Flagellant's sin.
Over the years I had suffered from nightmares in which I was trying to run from a menacing, knife-wielding evil presence chasing me. I would be unable to move. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get away. The blade got closer and closer. I felt doomed. When i would awaken from the dream, shaken and terrified, I would be safe in my bed, relieved beyond measure.
Waking and dreaming were now one. The seemingly malicious being was my own mind and emotions turned against me. There was no safety or relief. Nothing offered a long-term way out, other than not to be.
During this miserable period, I had had one medical problem after another, as you'd expect from one for whom life seemed such a cheap commodity. Pressure soars kept me in bed a week or more at a time (imagine a week in the Gulag in bed). Dangerously swollen limbs and dramatic weight loss were sure signs of lethargy, which is anathema to a quadriplegic. All parts of the descent to...Where? What? That, as Hamlet said, is the rub.
Back in Togus, I sat in an impersonal, glaringly bright room, readily recognizable to anyone who has ever been in any hospital waiting room. This one felt especially empty, like a room where one feels invisible because of the sheer indifference of everyone around you. Whether i was there or not did not appear to mean anything to anyone, including me. I wanted to scream, "Oh my God am I here all alone?" I was, after all, just another medical mouth to feed in an unending stream of veterans, all wanting something last week. Its not like I was General Powell or General Patton.
I waited, looking down. I looked down a lot. I was afraid to encounter another human being eye to eye. I was ashamed to feel so weak and in such apparent need. I was sick of feeling naked and utterly vulnerable. No secrets left to conceal.
I would have been reading a book, but even this innocent pleasure had been stripped away. I couldn't focus or didn't care. When you're facing not to be, in this context, not much matters. I vacillated from fragile confidence to search disillusion to deep depression to profound despair. There existed for me but one inevitable outcome: not to be. I was terrified, yet I always made it through.
I returned to the Catholic Church, seeking refuge, guidance, or comfort. I spent hours in silent prayer, yearning for some glimpse of hope. Something, anything, week after week, confession after confession, during communion and solitary anguish. My dark night of the soul pushed me to different territory, as I desperately searched for help.
One of the things that helped me pull very temporarily through was a visit to my VA shrink. He was a corpulent and imposing figure with an over-sized head. He was inevitably attired in a close-fitting, old tweed jacket and unironed baggy pants. His longish brown hair was unkempt. He had a wry, sour demeanor that said, "I'm only here because I have to be here".
This man, in his mid-fifties had apparently treated too many Post Traumatic Stress Disordered vets. He seemed worn out. I am still puzzled how seeing him helped. Perhaps it showed I was at least trying.
His small, dark, and couchless office was hidden away in one of the cavernous recesses of this otherwise overly illuminated bland landscape. Here existed a medical doctor and psychiatrist with walls displaying a lifetime of education and achievements. These were the real thing, I surmised, unlike Mr. Drudge's questionable wall ornaments.
I wanted urgently to tell him about this Voice that was always dogging me, like an Army drill Sargent constantly yelling in my face what a weak, sorry excuse for a human being I was. This Voice was for me an unanswerable precursor of my death, telling me my end was assured, inevitable, and imminent. The doctor didn't seem interested--my greatest, most pressing fear was of no consequence in that tomb he called an office. For all that, he seemed cheerful enough during my five minute session, as witnessed by this witty repartee:
Doctor: "So, Mr. Gill, how are you doing?"
Me: "Jeez, Doc, I'm really depressed."
Doctor: "Join the club."
That was it. He reached for his prescription pad, but as I was at that time trying to make my way back to at least a semblance of mental health drug-free, I declined. At that time, I believed psycho pills, capsules, powders, and shots compromised my capacity to determine my own well-being. Perhaps I was simply afraid of them. I held a dim view of those who let doctors tamper with their mental abilities. I regarded those folks as weak and passive:
I never believed in a pill,
that would do strange things to my will,
I looked down on those folk, but this was no joke,
now I never speak ill of the ill
I left his office wondering why I had ever gone there in the first place. Maybe it was helpful knowing the VA and this doctor cared, at least enough to make appointments for me. I usually left feeling a little better, which is saying a lot. I wasn't exactly Lazarus arisen, but I wasn't Lazarus in the tomb either. As I left, i thought how good it was to know there was a club of desperate and despondent depressives that would have me for a member.
Medication, yes, as the months went by and I saw no let up, I tried various medications. I guess I realized I was too close to something deadly serious not to at least give pills a try. I'm no martyr, nor a fool (I tell myself). At any rate pills were, at best, an all too temporary fix.
There was a frenzied run to an emergency room:
Nurse: "What can we do for you?'
Me: "Well, you see, I'm really freaked out here--
I mean depressed, and my VA psychiatrist
couldn't have cared less, unless he were
dead, of course. I don't know how much
longer I can hold on because I'm right at
my wit's end and if I don't get help soon
it may be the death of me."
A bit incoherent, you think?
This particular Nurse, who must have seen some hard cases, knew just what to do. Hearing the word 'death' and sensing my agony, she presented me forthwith to a psychologist/therapist. This astute and self-assured new-age youngster was in his middle or late twenties. He sported jet-black, shaggy hair. He had an obvious disdain for professional, or even presentable garb. His attire was random, at best. A plaid checked shirt with a tie unevenly knotted told me he would do the minimum, but no more in that quarter. He seemed idealistic and optimistic, like a hippie's son who had taken the parental flag and run with it.
I felt drawn to him, while at the same time envying his youth and good humor. He helped to pull me off the ledge, for awhile, using bio-feedback. He had a strange looking machine, with wires randomly situated. He hooked me up. I heard a slight buzzing sound and responded to several questions. He left. "What the hell is this?" I wondered. He returned with a printout and unsuccessfully tried to convince me I had strong mental abilities. I simply could not relate that to anything. I thanked him and left.
By this time I was out of possibilities. There was just nowhere to turn, nowhere to go, nothing to do, no future, no light, no hope. I faced an endless series of empty days ahead, joyless and comfortless. Absolute zero.
I waited aimlessly among the blind, cripples and crazy for my name to be called for something or other. The voice i had wanted to tell the doctor about, the Voice I was so terrified of, spoke to me from my deepest being: "Today is the day. You know what to do". I felt chilled in my core. I believed i couldn't descend any further. I had reached not to be. It was no Shakespearean play, dream, or metaphor. This was it.
Something beyond my conscious control consented without a struggle. "Yeah, today is the day. I knew it was coming. I do know what to do".
I had driven the road from Waterville to Augusta to Togus many times. I had picked out the perfect spot: a huge, jagged rock that protruded out of an embankment around a long curve on the freeway going north to Waterville. I had the perfect plan. I would release my seat belt, sped up to 75, and veer head-on into the rock. It would look like an accident. No one, especially Sarah, would ever know the truth.
I was resolved at last, after a bruising boxing match in which I had lost every round. I actually felt relieved; a great weight had been lifted off my sagging shoulders. This resolution was much like what you feel when someone else finally makes a critical decision for you that you just can't make for yourself.
I left Togus at long last. During this momentous visit, I had experienced the mundane and its polar opposite. Togus was an unlikely place for that. As the saying goes, 'When coming back to life, it makes no difference where you are', or something like that. I suppose that applies to leaving also, at least in the way I had planned.
I looked up. It was a clear spring day. The characteristic Maine April chill was in the air; a beautiful light blue sky the color of Frank Sinatra's eyes framed the day. I was reminded of many such days gone by that were once so full of promise, possibilities, and new life. I thought, "I'm never going to see this luminous blue Maine sky, or Sarah, or my family. How sad. Too bad it has to be this way".
My heart was very heavy despite the relief that passed so quickly. What was so strange, in hindsight, is that I felt no resistance. This, even though i was about to leave everyone and everything i cherished. I was crushed, yet resolved. Those who don't know this condition ought not to judge.
I headed back to the freeway. I saw a typical hitchhiker: mid-twenties, unkempt, and low-budget. I had bummed rides for what seemed like a hundred thousand miles. I recalled nights under overpasses trying to stay dry, freezing cold days in driving snow storms, and baking for hours and hours under the California sun. I had a soft spot for my careless kin; I had picked up many hitchhikers at this circle before. All of them had been going south to Portland. I would give this guy a ride to the on ramp, drop him off, head north, and execute the plan. I stopped; he climbed in. "Where are you headed?" I asked. "North, to Bangor."
I knew I wasn't going to take anyone with me into the rock. That was for me alone. I looked over at the hitchhiker. He was a most unlikely guardian angel. Sometimes salvation comes from unlikely sources. I silently pondered, 'You just saved my life, and you'll never know it'. Sitting next to me was this young, unknowing, and seemingly random guy who had single-handedly brought me back from the brink. This set me to wondering, 'What are the odds I'd come upon a north-bound hitchhiker on this day of all days, and just at this time?'
I was mostly quiet on the ride home, trying to ponder the imponderable. My unanswerable resolve and commitment to not be had evaporated in the time it took my hitcher to say "north". How strange, how simple.
As we passed the rock, I felt sick to my stomach and a mixture of profound awe and relief filled me. I let my Rider out at the on ramp to Bangor. I hoped there were many more of him to save many more like me. As he receded from sight, like the Hero riding into the sunset after saving the heroine and cleaning up the unruly town I sent him a silent blessing. Wherever you are, my hitchhiking Friend, THANK YOU and:
"May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
may you always know the truth,
and see the Light surrounding you..."
I thought long and hard about what I had almost done that day. Very disturbing questions demanded answers: What would this have meant for my loved ones, my Mom and Dad, brothers and sister, and my dear friends? And Linda, who had so intimately shared her life with me for fifteen years? Mostly Sarah. She knew my mental state far too well not to wonder whether I had purposely abandoned her for the last and forever time. Would I have permanently broken her then fifteen year old heart? What future would I have been condemning her to?
Would I have left her permanently in self doubt, maybe blaming herself? Would her sustaining, wonderful self confidence be destroyed, and she left prey to years of periodic depression, guilt, remorse? What of her life dreams, how would they have been effected? Perhaps I'm overstating my importance, but these and many other questions troubled my mind for a long, long time.
To this day, when I feel deeply depressed and out on a ledge, I am invariably brought back to safety by remembering Sarah, my beloved son-in-law Jeff and my beautiful grandsons Sam and Oliver. The circle of life expands. I am deeply grateful I am part of it.
As you can imagine this episode left me shaken to the very heart of my being. In an effort to stay off the ledge and protect my Dearest, I made a vow: "Whatever I do, wherever I am, whatever happens to me, my final act upon this earth will be for Sarah".
The light side emerges, the dark side recedes.
Monday, February 22, 2010
DEEP WATERS (1)
February, 1985 + Bangor, Maine
The time has come to switch gears and re-live some dark days. Linda, Sarah, and I had become immersed in deep and foreboding waters. The incidents that follow are very closely interwoven into this tapestry that presents three lives in snapshot form. Suffice it to write that we three moved in orbit around each other, from the Early days, Dark Days to these retrospective Deep Waters.
We all know life presents options and choices none of us wants or deserves. Loved ones die, marriages end, and auto accidents happen. The most painful are those in which we leave our cherished ones. As we've seen, Sarah felt deeply that I had abandoned her again and again. The injury, hospital stays, Kate, and law school, to name several, wounded her young and impressionable heart. I had abandoned her, choosing self-serving courses from which she was excluded. The one that follows was extremely painful for us all, as we struggled to hold our lives together.
As our marriage spiralled down to the point of no return, Sarah shrank like a child to the shadows. My emotional health had spiralled as well. Our shared dreams became lost in the whirling of hurt, anger, and confusion. We were like hurricane survivors lost and adrift in the ruins.
Linda and I were going our separate ways. Sarah was caught in the crossfire. She couldn't go with Linda; there was just too much anger to be livable. She stayed with me by default. I was in no condition to mentor my own child.
I had become deeply and seemingly irretrievably depressed. I was unable to work, sleep, drive or even read. I was dangerously suicidal and terrified. I desperately needed a change. My being cried out for immediate intervention. I was at another crossroad.
My choices came down to going to the VA psych ward at Togus or else. That 'else' was the unthinkable: the ultimate abandonment. Togus meant leaving Sarah, who was thirteen. She was losing her family in a flurry of recriminations and bewilderment. No one knew what to do with or for or against each other. I knew I was no good for anyone while I was unable to function and on the verge of suicide.
I called a VA friend who said I needed to get help right away. He told me he would make a call, which he did, and got me a bed at Togus. I didn't have the heart or the courage to tell Sarah, who was at school. I did the cowardly thing: I left a message for Linda and was driven to Togus. I slunk away, like a deserter from a battlefield.
As I was checking in at the hospital, Sarah called. There was terror and anger in her voice. There was terror and guilt in mine. I wanted to get out of talking to her, but I couldn't. THAT would have been to cowardly, even for me. I had to at least speak to my child, whose own world was in shambles too.
She went straight to the point: "Dad what are you doing there?" I tried weakly to explain, in a voice dripping with self pity. It all sounded so stupid and self-serving. I wanted to die. I told her i needed help and couldn't take care of myself any longer.
"When are you coming home?'
"I don't know."
"What am i going to do?"
"I don't know."
"Who's going to take care of ME?"
Utterly crushed, I broke down, uncontrollably sobbing. I mumbled I was sorry and handed the phone to my friend. I had left my little girl again in a dark, dark hour.
Morning after morning, evening after evening, day after day, I looked out my Togus window at the seeming desolation outside that reflected the desolation inside. Dylan words haunted me. She was Sarah Bird Charmer who had held that tiny chickadee on her trembling finger in the not-so-distant past. Each day in that psych ward, at first light, I awoke alone and terrified. Every evening at lights out, just before going to bed, I sat by my window and bowed my head and cried.
June-October, 1985 + Waterville, Maine
I eventually made it out of the psych ward. I was not sure I wouldn't be back. Yet leave I did. I was terrified to be thrust back into the world of personal choice and responsibility. In chronological time, my stay at Togus and eventual return to the world had taken but several months. In psychological time, it seemed a lifetime. During that lifetime, I had more or less reconciled to the notion Linda and I were finished as a married couple. I also knew Sarah and I had to figure out where she would live and where I would live.
Linda and Sarah still could not live together; the pain and anger between them was utterly destructive. The only tenable solution was for Sarah and I to live together in Waterville. I would provide a home and she would go to Waterville High. Sarah would begin school there as a freshman in August, 1985. When I dropped her off for her first day at Waterville High she was enraged, resentful, alone, and frightened. It was excruciating for both of us. I tried to reassure her, telling her how great she looked and how smart and friendly she was. I said she would readily make friends and settle in. That didn't help much.
I spent that day and many more forlorn and alone in our little apartment, doing nothing. I reached the depth of depression. I couldn't even brush my teeth, for fear I'd fuck it up somehow. Sarah was perpetually angry and hurtful. She too had been deeply wounded. She was thirteen years old; I couldn't reach or get close to her. She blamed me because i was nearest. She blamed Linda; she believed Linda had dropped an atom bomb into the very center of her life.
Every day after school I would be verbally attacked: "Why do you just sit around all day? Why don't you get a job? Why don't you give a shit about me?" I saw our relationship failing.
Life there became unbearable. Each attack and wrathful tirade left me feeling mortally wounded. I had no defenses left. I couldn't take any more. I told myself that, although i had given my all, I had failed. I knew Sarah was in pain, but I couldn't or wouldn't get close enough to her to make a difference.
A decision loomed, one fraught with life changing consequences. Would Sarah continue to live with me and go to Waterville High or would she live with Linda.
I was well aware that, if I said "No" to her living with me, I would be closing a door between us. If I said "Yes" I was sentencing myself to years more of these tirades, which left me exhausted and debilitated. Could I choose myself and abandon her again? Could i continue my pattern of satisfying my self-interest over hers? What was in the best interest of my family, Linda included?
The day of decision arrived. The day was overcast and uninviting. Linda, Sarah, and I gathered in the Waterville apartment kitchen. We were a onetime family. Each of us now seethed with hurt. We faced a future none of us planned or wanted.
We looked for answers to questions to hard to ask. There were simply no good choices. Each option contained varying levels of heartache. There were black holes everywhere.
One quality I admired about Linda was her unflagging honesty. She would get right to the point. "All right," she said to me, "What are you going to do?" Sarah stood there defiant, expectant, and nervous. I started to whine, listing all the reasons I couldn't do it. I knew my daughter's future was on the line. Mine was a pathetic, cowardly display.
I recalled a conversation I had with my sister Diane about this very thing. After giving her my excuses, she had said simply, in a gentle and loving voice, "But Ray, you're her father." That had stopped me cold.
"Yes", I said "Sarah should stay and live with me." It was done. When I got back to my bedroom, alone, I made a silent promise to Sarah and myself: "I will not let you down. Come hell or high water you will live here and graduate from Waterville High." That was a promise I kept.
The time has come to switch gears and re-live some dark days. Linda, Sarah, and I had become immersed in deep and foreboding waters. The incidents that follow are very closely interwoven into this tapestry that presents three lives in snapshot form. Suffice it to write that we three moved in orbit around each other, from the Early days, Dark Days to these retrospective Deep Waters.
We all know life presents options and choices none of us wants or deserves. Loved ones die, marriages end, and auto accidents happen. The most painful are those in which we leave our cherished ones. As we've seen, Sarah felt deeply that I had abandoned her again and again. The injury, hospital stays, Kate, and law school, to name several, wounded her young and impressionable heart. I had abandoned her, choosing self-serving courses from which she was excluded. The one that follows was extremely painful for us all, as we struggled to hold our lives together.
As our marriage spiralled down to the point of no return, Sarah shrank like a child to the shadows. My emotional health had spiralled as well. Our shared dreams became lost in the whirling of hurt, anger, and confusion. We were like hurricane survivors lost and adrift in the ruins.
Linda and I were going our separate ways. Sarah was caught in the crossfire. She couldn't go with Linda; there was just too much anger to be livable. She stayed with me by default. I was in no condition to mentor my own child.
I had become deeply and seemingly irretrievably depressed. I was unable to work, sleep, drive or even read. I was dangerously suicidal and terrified. I desperately needed a change. My being cried out for immediate intervention. I was at another crossroad.
My choices came down to going to the VA psych ward at Togus or else. That 'else' was the unthinkable: the ultimate abandonment. Togus meant leaving Sarah, who was thirteen. She was losing her family in a flurry of recriminations and bewilderment. No one knew what to do with or for or against each other. I knew I was no good for anyone while I was unable to function and on the verge of suicide.
I called a VA friend who said I needed to get help right away. He told me he would make a call, which he did, and got me a bed at Togus. I didn't have the heart or the courage to tell Sarah, who was at school. I did the cowardly thing: I left a message for Linda and was driven to Togus. I slunk away, like a deserter from a battlefield.
As I was checking in at the hospital, Sarah called. There was terror and anger in her voice. There was terror and guilt in mine. I wanted to get out of talking to her, but I couldn't. THAT would have been to cowardly, even for me. I had to at least speak to my child, whose own world was in shambles too.
She went straight to the point: "Dad what are you doing there?" I tried weakly to explain, in a voice dripping with self pity. It all sounded so stupid and self-serving. I wanted to die. I told her i needed help and couldn't take care of myself any longer.
"When are you coming home?'
"I don't know."
"What am i going to do?"
"I don't know."
"Who's going to take care of ME?"
Utterly crushed, I broke down, uncontrollably sobbing. I mumbled I was sorry and handed the phone to my friend. I had left my little girl again in a dark, dark hour.
Morning after morning, evening after evening, day after day, I looked out my Togus window at the seeming desolation outside that reflected the desolation inside. Dylan words haunted me. She was Sarah Bird Charmer who had held that tiny chickadee on her trembling finger in the not-so-distant past. Each day in that psych ward, at first light, I awoke alone and terrified. Every evening at lights out, just before going to bed, I sat by my window and bowed my head and cried.
June-October, 1985 + Waterville, Maine
I eventually made it out of the psych ward. I was not sure I wouldn't be back. Yet leave I did. I was terrified to be thrust back into the world of personal choice and responsibility. In chronological time, my stay at Togus and eventual return to the world had taken but several months. In psychological time, it seemed a lifetime. During that lifetime, I had more or less reconciled to the notion Linda and I were finished as a married couple. I also knew Sarah and I had to figure out where she would live and where I would live.
Linda and Sarah still could not live together; the pain and anger between them was utterly destructive. The only tenable solution was for Sarah and I to live together in Waterville. I would provide a home and she would go to Waterville High. Sarah would begin school there as a freshman in August, 1985. When I dropped her off for her first day at Waterville High she was enraged, resentful, alone, and frightened. It was excruciating for both of us. I tried to reassure her, telling her how great she looked and how smart and friendly she was. I said she would readily make friends and settle in. That didn't help much.
I spent that day and many more forlorn and alone in our little apartment, doing nothing. I reached the depth of depression. I couldn't even brush my teeth, for fear I'd fuck it up somehow. Sarah was perpetually angry and hurtful. She too had been deeply wounded. She was thirteen years old; I couldn't reach or get close to her. She blamed me because i was nearest. She blamed Linda; she believed Linda had dropped an atom bomb into the very center of her life.
Every day after school I would be verbally attacked: "Why do you just sit around all day? Why don't you get a job? Why don't you give a shit about me?" I saw our relationship failing.
Life there became unbearable. Each attack and wrathful tirade left me feeling mortally wounded. I had no defenses left. I couldn't take any more. I told myself that, although i had given my all, I had failed. I knew Sarah was in pain, but I couldn't or wouldn't get close enough to her to make a difference.
A decision loomed, one fraught with life changing consequences. Would Sarah continue to live with me and go to Waterville High or would she live with Linda.
I was well aware that, if I said "No" to her living with me, I would be closing a door between us. If I said "Yes" I was sentencing myself to years more of these tirades, which left me exhausted and debilitated. Could I choose myself and abandon her again? Could i continue my pattern of satisfying my self-interest over hers? What was in the best interest of my family, Linda included?
The day of decision arrived. The day was overcast and uninviting. Linda, Sarah, and I gathered in the Waterville apartment kitchen. We were a onetime family. Each of us now seethed with hurt. We faced a future none of us planned or wanted.
We looked for answers to questions to hard to ask. There were simply no good choices. Each option contained varying levels of heartache. There were black holes everywhere.
One quality I admired about Linda was her unflagging honesty. She would get right to the point. "All right," she said to me, "What are you going to do?" Sarah stood there defiant, expectant, and nervous. I started to whine, listing all the reasons I couldn't do it. I knew my daughter's future was on the line. Mine was a pathetic, cowardly display.
I recalled a conversation I had with my sister Diane about this very thing. After giving her my excuses, she had said simply, in a gentle and loving voice, "But Ray, you're her father." That had stopped me cold.
"Yes", I said "Sarah should stay and live with me." It was done. When I got back to my bedroom, alone, I made a silent promise to Sarah and myself: "I will not let you down. Come hell or high water you will live here and graduate from Waterville High." That was a promise I kept.
Friday, February 19, 2010
January, 2000 + Edinburg, Texas
The South Texas legal Project consisted of three: (1) our very intelligent and highly efficient paralegal, Catholic nun, and conscience of our office, (2) our office manager/legal assistant, a young Latino with an unbounded love for farm workers and the low income folk we served and (3) our director and attorney, your author.
On even years in February, the United Farm Workers held its convention. This required a huge organizational effort from everyone, Project staff included. Other than the general organizing we all did, I was responsible for parking, security, and much of the march which ended each convention.
We three continued our legal work, which included writing briefs, interviewing witnesses and potential clients, and attending court sessions, hearings, and depositions. We were extremely busy. On the day in question, I was rushing as always, only twice as fast. Very early in the morning, I awoke to prepare for a hearing in Edinburg, the County seat, which was about fifteen miles from my home. Documents I needed to peruse were in bed with me. I had no time to waste. I gulped down something that might have been coffee and inhaled something that was probably food. I was dressed for court in black polyester pants, long-sleeve dress shirt and some tie or other.
I made it to the courthouse without an accident, a ticket, or a traffic jam. I was alright as far as time went. I did need some time before the hearing to be sure I was ready for any objections or questions that might come my way. I could never prepare enough, it seemed.
I parked my van in the handicap space. I was in full litigation mode by then, ready to stun the legal world with the cogency of my argument:
"Your Honor, I will prove to you,
to my esteemed colleague, and
to all the world that my argument is
cogent, apposite, germane, relevant,
dispositive, and sui generis. Defendant's
case is utterly frivolous, without
merit, and should be summarily
dismissed and prejudice. Attorney
fees, costs, and punitive damages
should be awarded to my client".
Probably not, but a lawyer can dream.
So, as I say, I parked, got my paraphernalia together on my lap, like many times before. I checked myself out in the mirror, unlocked the chair restraint, and backed up to and opened the side door. I let the lift down so it was even with the van floor and headed out the lift face forward. I would then used the switch located on the lift itself, to ride the lift to the ground. All went as usual. I pushed out of the van onto the lift. By now i knew something was very rotten in Denmark:
My chair wheels were half in the van and half out on the lift. The inside lift switch would let go. It was stuck in the 'GO' mode. The lift was descending on its own. I couldn't get off the lift into the van or onto the ground. This was yet another out of control event that did not have my very best interest at heart.
The situation afforded me but one option. I could only ride it out, hoping I wouldn't be brain damages when my head hit the pavement. Everything seemed to move very slowly, with a will well beyond time.
I hit the pavement on my left side. My briefcase and precious papers were strewn everywhere. My chair was tipped over with me still in it, due to the the seat belt. One chair tire was still spinning. I lay there in full view of everyone walking into the courthouse. I knew help would come soon.
Given this situation, I thought, "I may be late for the hearing". I lay there imagining what my client would say to the unknown visiting Judge in my absence.
Mr. dignified attorney, champion of farmworkers, the United Farmworkers, and civil rights. I was the proverbial turtle on his back. I could flair and flounder, but not much more. Helpless I was, in case you didn't quite get that.
I gazed around, at floor level, so to speak. When would my champion arrive? ' Saint Guy would know what to do and those striving-to-be Samaritans'. I was becoming more petulant and descending fearlessly into self pity. 'Somebody better get here fast' I thought 'or my whole morning will be ruined'. Stating the obvious always helps in situations like this. The obvious ground, so to speak.
Eventually (time is warped in these events) along strolled Saint Guy's evil twin. I had seen this rather corpulent attorney from time to time in courts state and federal. He was, as I say, a stout fellow, one who was in the middle of the letting-himself-go process. My would-be savior was a man of about 45. His garb was lawyerly: a three piece dark blue suit, matching tie and wing-tips enclosed his well fed frame. He resembled Tolstoy's Ivan Illich: a self-satisfied government clerk going to seed. That my no means justifies what follows.
Ivan was the first to see me. he stopped and viewed the scene from seven feet away, "Do you need help?" he asked. If I weren't on the ground already I would have been floored. I could think of nothing to say so I muttered, "No, I'm OK." I listened to myself say these words. Why would anyone of common sense say that? Perhaps I didn't want to bother this guy, maybe I was too dumb founded, perchance my innate sarcasm and cynicism spontaneously emerged, slipping pat the Censor, who usually protects myself from myself. Anyway I take some of the blame for what came next.
Wordlessly, Mr. Illich scurried past me into the courthouse. I was reliving that bus driver nightmare. In this very bad dream, various people would leave me on the ground from sheer indifference or as a result of my dismissive attitude toward the human family at large and individuals in particular.
At any rate, a cadre of helpful people, who didn't need to ask, picked up my papers and me up off the pavement into my chair, right side up. I made it to my hearing on time. The visiting Judge sized up our situation and appeared satisfied. I had, after all, gotten my ass into the Judge's temporary courtroom more or less on time, considering I had been stranded on the pavement.
What of Mr. Illich? To this day I wonder about him. What would it have taken for him to stop and assist? Would a pool of blood have done the trick? How about me writhing and screaming in excruciating pain? Perhaps a small amount of broken glass would have triggered a different response? Or lying next to a detached arm or leg?
The issue is: What does it take for one human being to respond positively to another in obvious distress? What makes saint Guy willing to help or a busy attorney to walk on by? Perhaps my "I'm OK" released him from further responsibility 'Hey, why did you walk by that crippled lawyer tipped over on the pavement? Anyone, even an attorney, would see what was going on and stop to help.' 'Yeah, I saw him lying here--He said he was OK. What do you from me?'
What do you want from me?
The South Texas legal Project consisted of three: (1) our very intelligent and highly efficient paralegal, Catholic nun, and conscience of our office, (2) our office manager/legal assistant, a young Latino with an unbounded love for farm workers and the low income folk we served and (3) our director and attorney, your author.
On even years in February, the United Farm Workers held its convention. This required a huge organizational effort from everyone, Project staff included. Other than the general organizing we all did, I was responsible for parking, security, and much of the march which ended each convention.
We three continued our legal work, which included writing briefs, interviewing witnesses and potential clients, and attending court sessions, hearings, and depositions. We were extremely busy. On the day in question, I was rushing as always, only twice as fast. Very early in the morning, I awoke to prepare for a hearing in Edinburg, the County seat, which was about fifteen miles from my home. Documents I needed to peruse were in bed with me. I had no time to waste. I gulped down something that might have been coffee and inhaled something that was probably food. I was dressed for court in black polyester pants, long-sleeve dress shirt and some tie or other.
I made it to the courthouse without an accident, a ticket, or a traffic jam. I was alright as far as time went. I did need some time before the hearing to be sure I was ready for any objections or questions that might come my way. I could never prepare enough, it seemed.
I parked my van in the handicap space. I was in full litigation mode by then, ready to stun the legal world with the cogency of my argument:
"Your Honor, I will prove to you,
to my esteemed colleague, and
to all the world that my argument is
cogent, apposite, germane, relevant,
dispositive, and sui generis. Defendant's
case is utterly frivolous, without
merit, and should be summarily
dismissed and prejudice. Attorney
fees, costs, and punitive damages
should be awarded to my client".
Probably not, but a lawyer can dream.
So, as I say, I parked, got my paraphernalia together on my lap, like many times before. I checked myself out in the mirror, unlocked the chair restraint, and backed up to and opened the side door. I let the lift down so it was even with the van floor and headed out the lift face forward. I would then used the switch located on the lift itself, to ride the lift to the ground. All went as usual. I pushed out of the van onto the lift. By now i knew something was very rotten in Denmark:
My chair wheels were half in the van and half out on the lift. The inside lift switch would let go. It was stuck in the 'GO' mode. The lift was descending on its own. I couldn't get off the lift into the van or onto the ground. This was yet another out of control event that did not have my very best interest at heart.
The situation afforded me but one option. I could only ride it out, hoping I wouldn't be brain damages when my head hit the pavement. Everything seemed to move very slowly, with a will well beyond time.
I hit the pavement on my left side. My briefcase and precious papers were strewn everywhere. My chair was tipped over with me still in it, due to the the seat belt. One chair tire was still spinning. I lay there in full view of everyone walking into the courthouse. I knew help would come soon.
Given this situation, I thought, "I may be late for the hearing". I lay there imagining what my client would say to the unknown visiting Judge in my absence.
Mr. dignified attorney, champion of farmworkers, the United Farmworkers, and civil rights. I was the proverbial turtle on his back. I could flair and flounder, but not much more. Helpless I was, in case you didn't quite get that.
I gazed around, at floor level, so to speak. When would my champion arrive? ' Saint Guy would know what to do and those striving-to-be Samaritans'. I was becoming more petulant and descending fearlessly into self pity. 'Somebody better get here fast' I thought 'or my whole morning will be ruined'. Stating the obvious always helps in situations like this. The obvious ground, so to speak.
Eventually (time is warped in these events) along strolled Saint Guy's evil twin. I had seen this rather corpulent attorney from time to time in courts state and federal. He was, as I say, a stout fellow, one who was in the middle of the letting-himself-go process. My would-be savior was a man of about 45. His garb was lawyerly: a three piece dark blue suit, matching tie and wing-tips enclosed his well fed frame. He resembled Tolstoy's Ivan Illich: a self-satisfied government clerk going to seed. That my no means justifies what follows.
Ivan was the first to see me. he stopped and viewed the scene from seven feet away, "Do you need help?" he asked. If I weren't on the ground already I would have been floored. I could think of nothing to say so I muttered, "No, I'm OK." I listened to myself say these words. Why would anyone of common sense say that? Perhaps I didn't want to bother this guy, maybe I was too dumb founded, perchance my innate sarcasm and cynicism spontaneously emerged, slipping pat the Censor, who usually protects myself from myself. Anyway I take some of the blame for what came next.
Wordlessly, Mr. Illich scurried past me into the courthouse. I was reliving that bus driver nightmare. In this very bad dream, various people would leave me on the ground from sheer indifference or as a result of my dismissive attitude toward the human family at large and individuals in particular.
At any rate, a cadre of helpful people, who didn't need to ask, picked up my papers and me up off the pavement into my chair, right side up. I made it to my hearing on time. The visiting Judge sized up our situation and appeared satisfied. I had, after all, gotten my ass into the Judge's temporary courtroom more or less on time, considering I had been stranded on the pavement.
What of Mr. Illich? To this day I wonder about him. What would it have taken for him to stop and assist? Would a pool of blood have done the trick? How about me writhing and screaming in excruciating pain? Perhaps a small amount of broken glass would have triggered a different response? Or lying next to a detached arm or leg?
The issue is: What does it take for one human being to respond positively to another in obvious distress? What makes saint Guy willing to help or a busy attorney to walk on by? Perhaps my "I'm OK" released him from further responsibility 'Hey, why did you walk by that crippled lawyer tipped over on the pavement? Anyone, even an attorney, would see what was going on and stop to help.' 'Yeah, I saw him lying here--He said he was OK. What do you from me?'
What do you want from me?
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