it was but a mere second – nigh unto 4:30 in the morning – when my sweet poppo was on this planet and then wasn’t.
i said a wee-hours-goodnight to him, propped in a hospital bed at home in their house. he whispered back to me. i tried desperately to memorize his face, the love in his eyes.
and before the birds woke up in the morning, that morning eight years ago yesterday, i went from with to without.
three years later, we left my sweet momma sitting on the edge of her assisted-living-bed, grasping onto the blue-notebook-that-documented-their-moments-in-europe, her expression dancing with excitement, waving to us. i tried desperately to memorize her face, the love in her eyes.
it wasn’t but a couple weeks later, on the road back again to florida, around the time the sun is highest in the sky, i went from with to without.
suddenly, i was orphaned. suddenly i was without the two people who gave me life. suddenly i was without the two people who could answer any question i had about my growing up. suddenly – in a split second – nothing was the same.
100,000 families. in the past few months, due to the global pandemic decimating our country, 100,000 families have desperately tried to memorize a loved one’s face. they have held tightly to the memory of love shining in their beloved’s eyes. they have moved from one split second into the next. with to without.
and last night, on the solemn occasion of this number passing from 99,999 to over 100,000 – that one second – one person- one life – one with to without – i expected, foolishly, that something would change. that there would be gut-wrenching acknowledgement. that there would be communal nation-wide mourning led by the person in the highest seat in the land. that there would be kind, generous, thoughtful words spoken, grief-filled heart-soaked empathy for all that the withs-to-withouts have gone through.
and nothing.
we need remember. all of it. these are our split seconds.
and in the mist of the new grey day, uncolored by the pattern of another’s fabric in our close grasp, we rise.
we sip from coffee mugs, just the two of us, conversation spilling, yet stale in two-dimensionality.
we plan the day, but stop short of planning, for the days now have measured repeat signs.
sudden unexpected changes in rhythm punctuate the andante pace in isolation,
projects to learn and complete, new rules to follow.
we long for lingering conversations with dear ones, in person, touching distance.
for wine glasses clinking together,
for groceries we do not wash,
for sidewalks we willingly share,
for overdue embraces.
we long for that which was, that which we see we took for granted. we mourn. we grieve.
anger hangs as low clouds; aerosols so fine as to break down walls of solidarity.
laughter is key; we find it hiding around corners, peeking out, entering the fray and retreating. we chase it, grasping its laughter-tail and pulling it back into our life-day like warm taffy.
we watch news of this place, this state, this country, this world and find joy in small stories of goodness, in videos of lions napping on roads.
we long to feel less like we are in a science fiction movie and more like we are in a flattening curve.
we wish we hadn’t watched the movie contagion.
we end the day on top of mount everest, breathing air so thin that every breath is deliberate. we linger on the top-of-the-world, just as other-worldly as our own hometown right now.
we long.
we sleep, forgetting for a few hours, waking and, for moments, not remembering.
we step outside, coffee in hand
and the sun warms our faces and we wish to share the patio with voices and slow-dancers.
“…Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” (Robert Frost)
a product of sunday-drive-parents, i am a meanderer. i’ll choose a backroad. i’ll choose the woods. i’ll avoid the six-lane interstate. i’ll avoid the leader-led-coach-bus-travel tour group. i blame my sweet momma and poppo.
in an obvious life metaphor, choosing to be an artist of any medium -for the long haul- is choosing to be a meanderer. it’s choosing to live life looking for and celebrating layer cakes – a layer cake of work. it’s a continual wracking-of-the-brain for the next idea, the next project, next pitch, the next initiative, the next validation of your artistry. it’s continual exploration and continual growth, surprises and intrinsic rewards of the heart. and it’s continual worry: how will what you earn equal or be greater than that which you owe.
my parents encouraged my every musical moment. neither of them was a musician, but their steadfast support reinforced the decisions i made that were more out-of-the-box. their prideful applause inspired and fed me, lighting a fire even when the embers were falling to ash. times i would rise and fall and rise again, i blame my sweet momma and poppo.
in somewhat recent days, when i was bemoaning the exponential cost of healthcare, someone asked me if i needed to see a financial counselor, someone who could ‘teach me’ how to budget. i was stunned at the lack of sensitivity and actual empathy. “no, thank you.” i responded, while trying to maintain the sound of calm in my voice, “i am actually quite good at budgeting and truly love math. this is not rocket science. it is simply a case of not having enough income, even from several jobs, coming in.” a meanderer. those sunday drives.
i’ve read plenty of ‘being the youngest child’ articles. it seems that my profession, lean toward autonomy, artistry, careful rebellion are all because of my place in the sibling line-up. so, once again, i blame my sweet momma and poppo.
the urge to be off-the-beaten-path, literally and figuratively, to quietly sit in the middle of the woods or i-wish-more-often the top of a mountain, to stand on a wooden stage with a piano, a boom mic, a few songs and a story to tell: things that are part of my very soul. the core. i blame my sweet momma and poppo.
out of necessity it was only a few days after i broke both of my wrists that i played. it seemed that i had nine fingers that were attending this event, and i, relieved to have these nine, worked with what i had.
in the last couple months, my left hand progressed faster than my right. i had two breaks in my right wrist and, yes, i am older now than i used to be, so the doctor warned me that i needed to be patient. make that NEED to be patient; healing will take six to eight months, she said. but all five LH fingers participated in this early-on merrymaking and only my immobilized thumb was excluded on my RH. and both wrists. they were excluded too.
they changed the cast on my RH from over-the-elbow to one a tad bit shorter; this was happy for me as it gave me more mobility. i kept playing, despite the wad of cast that ended in the palm of my hand. i am a mom. i am used to working around things.
later, they changed it yet again to an exos cast, which is removable but much less designed specifically for your hand; it was actually quite uncomfortable and made my hand hurt in places it hadn’t hurt with the ‘regular’ cast on. i kept playing.
at the point when the coronavirus ceased all my regular doctor appointments, and after only one occupational therapy appointment, i kept playing.
finally, with the phoned-in blessing of my OT, i ordered a splint for my RH – the same one i wear on my LH, releasing my thumb from its cast-prison. i kept playing.
and then i noticed that my pinky wasn’t responding properly. nor was my ring finger. nerve pain was shooting from my fingers up my arm. and nodules in the palm of my RH were burning, stinging. no professional pianist i know wants his or her hands to hurt. i could draw hundreds of analogies here with other body parts and ways-of-living, but i will refrain from doing so and just say that this was disheartening and incredibly worrisome for me. and i kept playing.
i emailed the doctor and then sent pictures i labeled in photoshop so that my worry would be clear, since i was unable to be there in person; social distancing had put aurora on the don’t-call-us-if-this-isn’t-essential status. when she called me she said i really needed to come in. she said that they would take some x-rays and the hand specialist would look at my right hand, in particular. frankly, i was beyond nervous to walk into a medical center. they have their hands full (absolutely no pun intended) and i was reticent to be privy to whatever germs were hanging around or to take any focus from the more essential. but, because i am playing and because playing is what i do, i went.
although there is a slight chance that there is something else going on here, it looks like the palm tendons of my RH fingers are inflamed. this is likely because i have been playing with casts on. what’s the expression? damned if i do, damned if i don’t.
when i asked the specialist for a range of time this might last, his answer was ‘probably up to a few months’. he didn’t ask me a lot of questions to discern what was happening and i tried like heck to fill him in on every-single-last-thing about my hands, but, in as-quick-as-a-flash fashion, he was gone before i knew it. a-few-more-exercises-and-some-regularly-scheduled-advil advice later, i left the hospital, took off my mask and climbed, sighing, into big red in the parking lot.
i unfriended someone today. i was so shocked at his response to the vital importance of continuing to social distance in this global pandemic i found it reprehensible. his crass “everyone will die eventually” was deeply disturbing. he actually used the term ‘survival of the fittest’. i, in browsing for how my family and friends are doing, found no peace in his words, only a shortfall of empathy. i shudder to think of anyone who read or who will read these callous words who has been ill, has had a loved one ill, who has lost a life in their circle of life, who has been deemed unemployed, who has missed paying their rent and who stands in line for food, who is frightened. anyone with a heart.
i’ve unfriended a few people along the way these last few years. this hasn’t been because i merely disagree with them. i am open to disagreeing with you if you are open to discussion. but these have been folks who have been closed. closed to facts, to truth, to research, to conversation. closed. to me, it feels as if their hearts are closed.
for what is the importance of the next morning if what you care most about in the world is copious amounts of money or holdings? my sweet poppo used to say, “you can’t take it with you.” what is the importance of the next morning if you will throw others under the bus to elevate yourself? my sweet momma used to say, “be kind. be kind. be kind.” what is the importance of the next morning if everything is measured by black and white, an excel sheet of differences, all listed and highlighted. my big brother used to play his guitar and sing, “there’s a new world coming…” what is the importance of the next morning if you only measure yourself against others, their net worth, their houses, their jobs, their wardrobe, their vehicles, their exotic trips, their success? in high school i recited these words from desiderata, “if you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.”
instead, what about that morning someday? the one that presents you with the challenge of a lifetime, the one you have worked on honing your whole life. the challenge to accept who you are. the challenge to stand up straight in your integrity, to freely and generously love, to do your work, to look out into the world with open eyes. the challenge to not compare yourself, to believe in the betterment of humanity, to be kind, and to know that you can’t take any of it with you. the challenge to surround yourself with goodness and live now. this morning. tomorrow morning. the next morning. heart open.
sometimes we are silent. sometimes it’s better that way. a fluid point, a fine line of balance, there’s so much to say; there’s so much we should avoid saying. silent days.
we walk or hike outside, we take limited trips to the grocery store. not a lot of interaction, the way it is supposed to be right now. with varying cautions about distancing and asymptomatic spreading and aerosol molecules, the experts have my rapt attention. although i do not have the ability to make as much of a difference in this as those who are on the front lines, i need do my part. responsibly and respectfully.
making do with texts, phone calls, work videoconferences, online hangouts with friends, it’s still much more silent than it ever is, normally.
there are reports of residents hearing birds again in wuhan. the woodpecker is busy in our backyard, the mourning doves call, the frogs quip to each other in the woods.
and so we walk, quietly. we cross to the other side of the street, we single-file on the other side of the path. maybe here and there people answer to our soft hello as we pass. we shop, rarely, pushing a cart, quickly assembling what we need. we listen to the sounds that often linger unheard below the noise.
and even above the masks, even in the silence, i can see their tentative smiles.
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.
my emotional well was full when i woke up today. thinking of us, our children, our families, our dear friends, our community, this world. i desperately want to gather our beloveds in, hold them close, protect them.
i have no words for all of this; i have too many words for all of this. i fear that none of them are helpful, none of them are wise. it’s just me. and, like you, carrying the weight of the world one step at a time, one quiet minute at a time, staring out the window and wondering.
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.
i don’t feel as much in-a-boat as i feel that i am relentlessly treading water. but there was no handy treading-water bitmoji and i remember the exact moment that this bitmoji showed up on my snapchat mapping…in the middle of a lot of treading.
treading, treading. guessing at why what-is-happening is happening – in wide concentric circles around us, tightly close to us.
and today, both valentine’s day and d’s birthday, i want to express gratitude for this man who is standing in the water with me – waves crashing over us, undertow threatening to pull us down, riptide ever present – and holding my fiberglass-cast-encased hand. the person who is equally as perplexed at this time, who takes turns with me being alternatively flabbergasted, philosophical and soberingly pragmatic.
he continues to zip my jacket, buckle my seatbelt, paste my toothbrush, carry my music, pepper-mill my breakfast and dinner, put the ernie straw in my coffee. he has learned the fine points of where-on-the-head to place hair conditioner, how best to tie plastic bags on my arms, what stool will work best at the piano, which wine glass i can pick up at the end of a day. he has watched me learn how to hold mascara with two hands and pull up girl jeans by the belt loops. he has been treading water with me as we look to the horizon.
maybe this watershed is the thing that elicits change. at the end of 2019 i could feel it coming. and i can now, with all authority and certainty, say that the change is not that i will, smack dab in the middle of middle-age, become a professional snowboarder. nope. but there may truly be things out there i just didn’t see or consider. perhaps the things that are vexing us, stunning us, deeply disappointing us, are just the things that will propel us. ah, if that just didn’t feel so pollyanna-ish.
this life is bigger than anyone can ever live it. that includes us. treading water in the watershed might be a time that forces dynamic change. like everyone, i wish i had some prescient inkling of what’s-out-there, what-will-happen.
my perceived lack of control is maybe a misperception. maybe that which has taken away control is conversely granting control, granting the creativity that comes with grabbing onto flotsam and jetsam in a sea that seems to be swirling. maybe the grasping-at-straws is grasping-at-ernie, a touchstone that seems flimsy and unimportant, but which actually is grounding, rooting, and gives voice to more solid footing, less wave-action, more direction-choosing.
the watershed is here. moment by moment we stare at it. we roll our eyes, we yell at the angst-y details, we shake our heads in confusion, we stop and stand still and, yet hyperventilating from treading, we wonder. we try to breathe, to center, to be in the eye of the storm.
holding hand-cast, we look forward and we guess that this ain’t the last watershed on the horizon.
download WATERSHED from AS IT IS on iTUNES or CDBaby
reverse threading 