i didn’t mean to take this picture. somehow my phone camera snapped it and i was unaware. later, when i looked at my photo stream of the day i was surprised to see this. it took a few minutes to figure out what the picture was of, the way you feel when you look at an ink-blot picture, your eyes focusing on the dark, the light, the foreground, the background, searching-searching for an image to emerge.
i always had trouble with those. i must have been concentrating too hard to find something there. i suppose relaxing into it would have produced an image sooner.
the feathers gave it away. the feathers made it recognizable. a piece of familiar, the feathers gave it perspective. the dream-catcher hangs on the switch of the lamp on our kitchen table so it wasn’t as hard as the inkblots after all.
i wonder how many times i have not recognized the ‘real’ image. how many times i have given little attention to the everyday, glossing over it. how many times i have passed by light, my eyes focusing on the dark, my attention to the background instead of the inkblot or vice versa, trying too hard to find ‘it’. passing by the familiar, looking to the distance. or staring at the familiar with no eye to the distance, the horizon out-there attention-less. what might i have missed? what more might i have seen?
i am finding comfort in the familiar right now. i am recognizing more-and-more that which is basic is that which is familiar is that which is comforting. like chicken soup and pasta sauce, i find basic and simple consoling, the familiar i see heartening.
might we have different eyes post-this-crisis? might we all hold simple closer? might we ford the great-chasms-of-divide in this country with horizontal -not vertical- ladders of understanding like the ladders that traverse deep crevasses in high mountain climbs? might we be more willing to see economic, educational, opportunity differences? might we truly address them? might we see the landscape-that-has-always-been-there differently? might we realize that which is comforting, familiar to us is the inkblot that so many cannot even begin to see, that so many cannot even imagine? might we believe that every one is worthy? might we see universal needs, universal struggles in a more united, focused-energies way? might we come together, support different perspectives, talk about what is essential, strive for something different?
our universe camera is snapping pictures left and right of this pandemic crisis. what will we see when we look through the photo stream? what we will recognize about ourselves, this country? will we embrace an image of care, of concern, of responsibility for each other, of unity, of equality? or will we remain blind to the obvious differences we experience as this divisible ‘indivisible one-nation-under-God’ and will the dark inkblot prevail over the light? we can look for the feathers as clues.
“hope…it makes you breathe differently. it makes your heart beat faster. it makes your knees weak and your ability to wait strong. it makes you weep with anticipation and holds you close with others who are also hoping.” (reverse threading, dec. 7, 2018)
i have done time on the kitchen floor. like you, i have been brought to my knees with grief, anxiety, worry, pain, shame, fear, sadness, loneliness, anger, disappointment. when you are on the floor, any movement seems monumental. anxiety is crushingly powerful. it seems unlikely you will rise. and even as you go about your days, doing the things you do in life, it seems you will remain on the virtual kitchen floor.
but then, there is a moment. it appears illusory yet it is luminous. it is a mere butterfly wing, the slightest of silk tendrils, but it is there. elusive and tiny, it asks for absolute focus. like viewing through the eyepiece on binoculars, you slowly steady your gaze. something inside you knows. something tells you to reach for it and hold it gently in your shaking hands. it is hope.
“hope. there aren’t many words like this…describing that which you can actually – viscerally – feel in your body. it makes you breathe differently. it makes your heart beat faster. it makes your knees weak and your ability to wait strong. it makes you weep with anticipation and holds you close with others who are also hoping.” (reverse threading, dec. 7, 2018)
waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a yes or no or waiting for their hair to grow. everyone is just waiting. waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their uncle jake or a pot to boil, or a better break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or another chance. everyone is just waiting.
somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. you’ll find the bright places where boom bands are playing. with banner flip-flapping once more you’ll ride high! ready for anything under the sky. ready because you’re that kind of a guy!
oh, the places you’ll go!”
(dr. seuss)
an eighth rest. these two broken wrists are down from a quarter rest to an eighth rest. and waiting.
we are all waiting. for hours, days, weeks to go by. for healing. we are biding time. on hold. on eighth-rest-repeat.
and in that vast biding of time we are maybe finding that some of the things we have busied ourselves with don’t count as much. and some count more. maybe our time of waiting will reveal to us that which is most important. maybe it will be a time of needed rest. a time of slowing down. a time of subitotacet. a time of honoring those who truly help us. a time of quiet conversation, of learning new things, of disassembled notes gathering together from their places in the stars to form a new song.
we wait. and we don’t know when the waiting will stop. but oh, during this waiting, and after the stand-still-pause is over, oh, the places we will go.
this morning i am devoid of color. like many of you, i had a day – for me it was yesterday – that shook me to the core. in the midst of all the bootstrap-pulling and the sisu-garnering we are mustering, angst pushed its way to the surface. i stood in front of my piano and it started. it didn’t stop until i laid my face on the pillow to rest, late last night, and then it woke me in the middle of the night, poking me into the place where you stare into the dark, imploring your mind to stop. if you were there too, in the middle of angst yesterday, we were in solidarity.
this morning i am devoid of color. apparently, for the whole of my life, i have not been as brutally aware of the chasms in this country as i am now. we are not really one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. and the rose-colored glasses that birthed loyalty have slid off our collective faces. this country is as divided as they come. it is as inequitable as they come. and woefully, it is as shallow as they come.
this morning i am devoid of color. in the middle of a global pandemic the leaders of this country are failing us. jousts of economic strategy are thrust into this health-terror; federal taunts of get-it-for-yourself set the stage, the precedent, a hideous example for a people intent on self-servingness. we see the curtain pulled on what is important to people and we are appalled.
this morning i am devoid of color. the in-fighting pales in comparison to the cavalier buttressing of parties. yes. “red and blue america are not experiencing the same pandemic.” we can’t have conversation because that would involve honest communicating. we can’t seek truth because who could then be blamed? we can’t even talk because we are too angrily disparate to talk. tilting my kitchen chair back on two legs as we read aloud the news i feel the earth tilt under me and i hold onto the table.
we are not on the same page, we of this country. this pandemic, capable of uniting us in working to flatten the curve of its dread, is further dividing us. information is warped; information is withheld. facts – facts! – are play-doh-molded into whatever pushes forth agenda. there are two distinct camps of thought and nary shall they meet. this has generated an opportunity, a ploy, for more polarity; we see it, experience it, up close and personal. and, to add insult to injury, the great divide, the vast difference between those-who-have and those-who-don’t is exposed like a compound fracture. despite sixty years on this earth, i have never seen it more clearly. and it is staggering.
this morning i am devoid of color. fear has drained the color from my face. i want us, my husband and i, to stay healthy. i desperately want my beloved children to stay healthy. i earnestly want my parents-in-law to stay healthy, our siblings, our families, our extended families, our friends. but the misinformation war has put us in peril. this insidious virus is sweeping the globe and we are in danger. that, at its root, should not be a question or a bargaining chip. it should not be ignored nor should it be conflated to suit agenda. it should be factual, pragmatic, cautious, proactive, seeking answers, results and healing of lives – indivisible – for all.
so many people in this nation, practicing goodness. but this nation? this nation has a choice to make.
this morning i am devoid of color. i am deeply disappointed. i am afraid.
i’m writing this as i listen to the loud interruption of wind machines and a large lawnmower/mulcher behind our yard. a family with many children (6 or maybe 7) is having their yard spring-cleaned up and it makes me nostalgic for the days we, as kids, as families, cleaned our own yards.
the feel of the rakes in our hands, the smell of leaves, the chill in the air and the anticipation of spring-on-its-way, the promise of hot chocolate. the quiet. i can hear the sound of the metal tines of the rake, many bent out of shape, as i attempted to make piles of leaves. my dad would later clean up my messy attempts but in the meanwhile i knew i was helping. i was outside and the sounds of birds-early-on-the-wing and rustling squirrels, the wind whispering high in the oaks of our yard, these were the sounds of march.
ahhh, the blowers and the large-engine machine just stopped for a moment and i took a deep breath before they started back up again.
in these days of unsettling and increasing isolation we are challenged to find ways to calm our souls. recently we took a long walk on the frozen lake up north. all around us nature was quietly waiting. gracefully bending in the cold wind, birch trees wait. grasses, browned from fall and a long winter, sway in pause. all around us you could feel it; anticipation of what is to come and the quiet biding of time.
in between all the remotely-done work-of-the-day tasks, maybe later today we will take a walk. we’ll put on our boots and drive to the woods. we’ll feel our breathing even out as we step from little-baby-scion into a hushed space, a place of waiting. we’ll likely walk in silence.
there’s so much noise around us these days. angst and anger, concern and contention, rhetoric and reason, pomposity and push-back.
we have no choice but to wait. to be respectful of each other, of the time it will take. to do what we need to do in order to survive as best we can with as few dire repercussions as possible. to be responsible and proactive. to do the right thing and honor health and life in the none-too-steady heartbeat of the world. to wait. like the birch trees and the grasses on the edge of the lake, bowing to the wind and rising to the sun.
bananas. they were $.49 lb. we picked up a bunch and walked to the register. a moment later, with no question or drama, we paid our $1.17 and left.
the next step in my two-broken-wrists saga is occupational therapy. not because we do everything with our hands. not because we write with them and open doors with them. not because we use them for our personal hygiene or because we cook with them. not because we drive with them or dress with them or shake hands with them. but because using my hands IS what i do. the therapist asked me how long i have played the piano. 53 years. it’s what i DO. so getting my wrists back to pre-snowboard-fall is imperative to me. there are no other options.
before we went to this first appointment i, responsibly, called our healthcare insurance company – the one we pay $29,000 a year to – the one with the slogan ” for the care you need at a price you can afford” – to check in about the coverage of OT. i was told, after much menu-choosing, that i am limited to 20 visits and that the cost will be $50 per visit. with the OT’s recommendation that my getting-these-wrists-back-trajectory would involve appointments twice a week, that would add $400 to the already-$2400/month in healthcare costs. bracing. impossible.
the OT office checked in with me to remind me of my appointment, coincidentally, just after i hung up with the insurance company. i told them what i had just learned and they insisted i was wrong. “no,” i was told, “we have never heard of molina charging ANYthing for a copay.” I asked them to please double-check for me and they assured me they would and that they would apprise me at my appointment.
when i arrived, the receptionist checking me in told me that they had their 23-year-insurance-veteran in the office check and that there would be no copay. i asked them to provide a written document to that effect so that if and when i was billed i would have recourse. they assured me that they would triple-check and to stop back after my appointment.
at the end of my appointment with the therapist, the receptionist told me that “no, you don’t have to pay $50 per visit. it’s actually worse. instead, you have to pay 100% of all fees until your thousands-of-dollars-deductible is met.” what?!!!! now this is the third story i am hearing about the same service with the same provider and the same insurance company. who am i to believe?
i stood there and literally cried in front of the receptionist in the middle of the waiting area. you mean to tell me that our $29,000 a year doesn’t really cover much of anything??? this is blatantly wrong, grossly outrageous.
bernie sanders, if you have listened to him speak, has given a example of the perverted and pathetic healthcare in this country. he speaks about a family who makes $60,000 a year and that this family must pay $12,000 for healthcare. “that’s 20% of their gross income,” he bellows. what i wish he would add is this next example: consider a couple who makes say $65,000 a year (this is the magic healthcare cliff for two people and only $5000 more than the previous example). that couple will pay anywhere between $24,000 and $29,000 for a policy that will still have high deductibles and yet (clearly) not actually have good coverage. i want to jump on the bernie-bellowing-band-wagon and yell, “that’s 45% of that couple’s income!!! what is wrong with that???? EVERYTHING!” how is it that we can live in this country, the richest country in the world, and have the worst healthcare for our populace? how is it right to set the populace up for financial disaster when they have to deal with the eventual health scare, injury, illness?? (on a side note, i won’t even beGIN to start talking about Covid-19, for i have nothing good to say about the administration’s handling, lack of information or truth, and unpreparedness for this pandemic that will truly test the resiliency of our country.)
when i could take a breath at the receptionist’s desk i asked, “what do these appointments cost?” how much is my professionalism worth to me, i am thinking. i earn my living playing the piano, i am thinking. i have fifteen albums of piano music, i am thinking. i am a pianist, i am thinking. i just need care for my wrists so that i can do what i do, i am thinking. at what cost, i am thinking.
but healthcare is not like bananas. i was told, “we can’t answer that. we don’t know.” i beg your pardon??? “billing handles that. and it’s different depending upon insurance plans and whether or not you have appropriate insurance.” i beg your pardon???? “what if i just wanted to pay cash right now?” i ask. “you can’t,” she says. “we don’t know what it costs.”
i wonder if it would be more if i paid cash – after all, i’m not an overstuffed insurance company that has the capacity to deny portions of the billing or disallow costs or base payment on the coding used to describe my treatment, while at the same time accepting ridiculously high premiums from clients with the knowledge that the insurance offered is incomprehensibly lacking.
no. i’m just a person who needs her hands.
we left, went to the store and bought more bananas.
reverse threading 