warm fusion

had my monthly infusion this morning; only one needle prick, not much pain.  

sometimes, no usually, i find it helpful to breath into the pain, be fully present to it just as it is.  don't proliferate the stories of 'why me?', 'not this again,' etc.  a friend likened such an approach to what she had learned in lamaze class, and has found helpful through the years.  this morning however, i was busy telling the nurse about my chapulines (grasshoppers) from last weekend.  my girlfriend says, of our valentine's dinner, she had tapas, and i had 'hoppas.

toward the middle of my three and a half hour sit by the iv pole, my roommate arrives as i doze.  i 'roll' over, mindful of the iv line, to say hello, and try unsuccessfully to fall back to sleep.  attractive woman in her late fifties (our privacy in these and other matters is, at best, negotiable:  she is asked 'is this - something something 1951 - your birthday?', a question we all must answer to identify the small bladder of drug as correctly intended for us); she is slight, has sandy blond shoulder length hair, a dash of long white bang, maybe an inch wide, flowing over her left ear.  her eyes are strikingly blue - i imagine they are contact lenses.  (because i'm a guy, i have no idea what she was wearing.  the latent writer in me could make something up, something with symbolic significance, essential to this narrative.  however, i've no idea where this will lead, what might add to it, what might foreshadow a denouement.)

becky is about as 'ms-ed up' as me, twelve or so years since diagnosis.  we exchange preliminaries, and fall into something of an infusion rapport.  we each have an ongoing relationship with each of the nurses, exchanging family stories and updates each visit.  in the eighteen or so months i've been on this designer drug - tysabri, an incredibly expensive elixir, thankfully covered by insurance - i've never sat down with the same roommate twice.  there is generally a sympatico feeling, given the same leaking boat we are paddling, maybe we bale with a teaspoon from time to time, or a bucket when we can.  she had a copy of the book, the giver, and several copies of individual school pictures of her middle school aged daughter (she planned to label each of them for delivery to extended family.  this was my moment to note the lack of a person to do such a thing in my household.  the few pictures i get go in a box for each boy.)   she asks me 'can i share something with you?  it's kind of personal.'  i'm not sure what to think, but what have i got to lose?

(time out, the soundtrack i am sam is playing on the cd player, it moves me, sort of fusing with this fusion tale.  'once there was a way to get back home...

 sleep pretty darling, do not cry, and i will sing a lullaby...'  okay, time out's over, pardonne-moi.)

she reads to me from a hand-scrawled passage on the back of a missal or newsletter.  her daughter had written it during church sitting next to her dad.  presumably happily married, becky does not attend these services with her husband - it's a 'long story' i'm told (i think i have experience with such stories).  the passage cites how her mom views her ms as a gift, the opportunity it has afforded her to slow down and smell the roses.  it was a touching tribute to and approbation of her mom.  i don't think to myself, 'gosh, wish i had a daughter.'  (no, i have been there before:  i used to joke with loret that we'd had a daughter for nine months until miller was born.)  the passage at one point refers to the sort of society described in the giver: as i understand it a place that has no disease, war, famine, or death (only a euphemistic 'passing' or some such thing - i've never read it, only heard various reviews from my middle school progeny - most recently from miller, who was fascinated by the book, and was paired with malia at school for a debate over euthanasia, in the context of the book).  the passage suggests, as does the book, that in seeking a world free of the bad, the darkest of dystopias can result.  it is only through loss that we can feel the fullness of life, etc.  'the giver' in the book is a person who tells 'the listener,' i think, all about the past with its attendant vicissitudes and tragedies - likely of the twentieth century - such that they may be avoided in the future, but nobody else has to hear this bummer-drag history stuff.  i could hear myself in the passage, and thanked becky for sharing it.  

i think we all try to create our own utopias, pushing away the bad, holding onto the good.  it is as close to human nature as i can imagine.  this hurts, so i will take my foot out of the fire.  or, this doughnut tastes good, i will have another box of them.  but the reality is that loss and pain - so much of the bad stuff - are often unavoidable.  and even the good stuff, when we overindulge, or try to cling to it as it slips through our fingers, will lead to suffering. 

to be with what is, this moment - a needle stuck in the arm, an interesting infusion partner (or the one a couple months ago who vomited into the trash can on the floor between us, and was sent home) - right now, like it or not, is what your whole life has led to:  can we open the door, accept the invitation to be present?  is it sad?  cry your eyes out.  is it absurd?  laugh them dry.  is it both?  lose yourself in the mystery.  because here's the thing:  this is it, there is no tomorrow or yesterday, only right now.  

the ancient hindus called the original being before the universe atman - that which unfolded over the millennia to become, to evolve into - time, space, light, dark, dog, cat, you, me.  not unlike modern physicists' concept of 'singularity' before the big bang.  in german, atmen means 'to breathe.'  

as you read this last word - for it is growing late - take a deep breath:  and feel the presence of god.