Breaking The Fast

(I wrote a shorter version of this after midnight today at my Facebook page, but decided to bring it here because processing through my recent near-death is what has stopped the dark-of-night panic attacks: Memoir as noticing what is good in the present moment.)

I was reading Konagod's blog just now and his jonesing for french fries because it's been over a week since he had solid foo. I thought to myself "I went 10 days without food during the gut explosion incident." I had to go look at a calendar to make sure I wasn't mythologizing myself.

I got a grocery delivery the early evening of Sunday, Oct. 11. I was anticipating its arrival because I was hungry, had gone more than a day without food, because I had no money and no way to go get food on my own. The first thing I did was sit down and eat a handful of tortilla strips with some spinach dip and a glass of orange juice -- enough to give me quick, healthy energy. I saved the rest of my hunger for a real meal and began trying to haul the bags of groceries to my kitchen. That is when the final hernia rupture took place. I left perishables on the dining room floor and went to lie down from the sudden pain, hoping it would subside as it had before over the preceding year.

And, of course, the reason why these episodes of severe abdominal pain and vomiting had gone untreated by me for a year is because I had no insurance, no money to pay for an office visit or even to get transportation to a health facility. I didn't know what was wrong with me, had guessed it might be my gall bladder and so was trying to address it with a diet revision. I had not an inkling that it was two hernias slowly extruding through abdominal muscle and strangling my colon -- nor of the carcinoid tumor sitting like a time bomb in my appendix.

Lying down didn't help. I began puking every 15 minutes, and at midnight gave up on working a shift that night but couldn't get to my computer or phone to call in. I had water and gatorade by my bed, and tried to stay hydrated by sipping at it periodically, but vomited back up anything I swallowed.

Things get hazy after that. All my memories are of agony in the dark, but it couldn't have been dark all the time those two days. I know for a fact that I called EMS at 2 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 14, and since I had to get to my phone anyhow, I composed an email to Jesse giving all my passwords, emergency info, etc -- don't know how I did that, either, but the email is there.

I think I called Jesse, too, but I don't remember talking to him. Somehow I found and put on clothes that were nearby. I couldn't get to underwear or my shoes, so I greeted the paramedics without those items. Didn't have my wallet, either, but I was on sheer mercy by that point. The only thing in my pocket was my front door key. I didn't say goodbye to Dinah. I had no idea I'd be gone three weeks -- time had stopped for me.

Why I finally called the paramedics, instead of dying in the dark, is that I prayed to my mama. I had been trying to find a position where the pain would let up just a fraction, enough to give me a minute of rest. I think I said out loud "I'm in trouble this time, Mama. You gotta help me." And instantaneously the pain got much, much worse. I interpreted this as her saying "I can't help you, you have to ask somebody else." So I did.

I was at the ER by 3 a.m., where the angelic Lisa gave me Zofran and Dilaudid, erasing my agony within seconds. I remember being transferred to the 2nd floor only because of the nurse who was there, who kept calling me baby girl. That nurse is who tried to pass a nasogastric tube through my right nostril. Her attempts were not working, and when my right side was bloodied amd she was switching to my left nostril, I took the tube from her and did it myself. A feat I'm not likely to ever repeat, but it earned me a lot of street cred on that floor.

The NG tube began pumping out copious amounts of green gunk, more than seemed possible. I had an internal lake of backlogged bile from my halted alimentary canal, and removing it vastly helped my nausea. But they decided to let that process have a little time to work, keeping me on a push IV. The NG tube and oyxgen began drying out my mucous membranes. I remember I had five tubes and/or monitors in me because Jesse and I joked about me being "Five-Line Girl".

They gave me a tightly rationed amount of ice chips as my mouth and lips dried out. It became difficult for me to talk, and my lips began cracking. I wanted liquid, but I was vehemently not hungry at that point. It was fine with me if I never ate again. Eating meant vomiting. You never quite appreciate the miracle of your digestive system until it completely quits on you.

I had a couple of Dilaudid days because I also can verify I didn't have surgery until the early morning of Friday the 16th. I have a crystal clear memory of being prepped in the surgical suite, the older and extremely competent nurses around me, feeling beyond fear because it was get fixed or die. I also remember waking up, a calm dykey looking nurse telling me "All good, you wanna call anyone?" and me moving my body to see if there was any pain, but she was right, it was all good. More ice chips until I passed gas, then had a BM, which took three days.

The dryness of my mouth started making me miserable despite the Dilaudid. I was also hallucinating my ass off for a couple of days, which I kept to myself, not even telling Jesse. I saw ghosts in my ICU room 24/7, walking in and out the walls, and I decided they were hallucinations, not real ghosts, because one of them was a little girl in a long dress and a bonnet but that hospital was too modern to have an old-fashioned ghost like that, so it was all in my head. They were some sort of company and I didn't mind them much.

Once I started having BMs, though, the ice chips and IV were not enough, I was craving water, milk, juice, soup. It was on Wednesday the 21st that the tech finally got permission to give me something besides ice chips. Veronica, that was Veronica, I adored her. Hard-bitten and expert, teased me a lot because, as she put it, I was the only one in that ICU section who wasn't out of my mind. She came into the room holding a massive rainbow-striped popsicle, all artificial colors and fake sugar, the kind of thing I'd never buy for myself. But it looked like glory at that moment. She unwrapped it for me and I took one bite, then moaned, which embarrassed us both. She sneaked me another one before her shift ended.

I got sick of the popsicles within two days, so it was at least another two days before I got progressed on to lemon jello for a day, then finally beef broth which was truly excellent, they made it from scratch there in a real kitchen. Anyhow, it was 10 days without anything but ice chips, and another five days before I got the beef broth. But I was on Dilaudid most of that time, which makes it a lot easier, Konagod. You have my sympathy fer sure.



[To read Jesse's posts here as this all unfolded, beginning on October 14th, read Maggie Jochild In Hospital For Major Abdominal Surgery and then proceed forward. Eventually I was able to write as well and Jesse took those posts as dictation, got them up for me. Then Liza sent me a netbook at the hospital and I was back online -- that netbook is my lifeline in bed now, is what I use to write this and everything else. I have food and meds, rent and utilities, only because people send me money each month. Most days, I find joy in being around. Thank you for keeping me.]

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Adventures in Gravity

(Snowmageddon photo by Alexis Glenn.)

We all have worst nightmares about our bodies -- what we think maybe we couldn't bear happening to us, maybe wouldn't want to survive. These fears are cliches in melodramatic screenplays, the dancer or athlete who loses their legs, the painter who goes blind. We're assumed to understand, on a gut empathetic level, how tragic physical loss is and see those who face it as inspiring.

But if it isn't quite so photogenic or melodramatic, we look away. Or if we can "blame the victirm", well there ya go: Gary Busey was asking for it in a way Christopher Reeve was not, right?

And because we know we're supposed to be ashamed if we're closer to the Gary Busey end, we're supposed to be contrite and hungry if we're poor, and we're supposed to get better. If we're losing ground, we know we should go silent.

I'm fighting all those internal voices as best I can. Every day.

Having had lifelong asthma and undiagnosed but limiting orthopedic issues, I've not had the dread a lot of folks carry about losing physical function. It's no fun but it's not particularly soul-inhibiting to not be able to do all forms of mobility. The nightmare I nursed was losing brain function, memory, communication ability -- all of which occurred in 2000 with the anoxia during my knee replacement surgery. It took me almost a decade to get over that actualized fear enough to face another major sirgery, which happened in October (no choice about it) with only the typical postoperative mental effects.

I'm still certain I'd rather check out than live without my fully functional mind -- I/we get to define ourselves, and for me, my brain as is remains the deal-breaker. I have some safeguards in place to keep me from a Schiavo existence, but of course there are no guarantees.

With my physical decline, however, I developed another subterranean fear, that of falling down and finding myself unable to get up by myself. I became aware of this fear the Thanksgiving after my knee replacement, when I went to eat with an extended clan of Texas yellow dog Democrats and wiccans. I sat in a rocker that was a few inches lower than my leg muscles could actually render me upright from. When it was time for me to go, I had to be shouldered to my feet by two pot-bellied hippies who smelled of weed and cranberry relish. I became very careful about where I stepped and sat down after that.

I guess I should be proud I went a decade, then, without a mishap.

Last Thursday I had a physical exam scheduled by disability services. It's impossible for me to get anywhere without serious help. Not long after I got home from the hospital, a gay man named Sheldon wrote me an e-mail offering help. He's a radical pagan cat-lovin' late boomer who lives west of Austin with Win who writes the Konagod blog I enjoy so much. Sheldon has turned out to be a real buddy, someone I enjoy intensely. And he's literally saved my life.

Sheldon got me to my doctor visit in January, which was a serious ordeal. I keep rediscovering how weak I am now. He's a natural at noticing pace, bearing witness, keeping company, and not doing more or less than I ask of him. Other crips will instantly know what I mean. I can relax around him even as I am in extremis.

So I asked him to get me to the disability exam, which I anticipated would be an even harder challenge. He said yes. That morning I got cleaned up and began making my way to my wheelchair in the living room, because I had clean clothes and shoes next to the chair and I planned to dress sitting in it. I was using my folding walker to get through a narrow spot and turned it sideways, then leaned on it sideways. Mistake.

The walker collapsed on itself, going down underneath me and managing to entangle one of my calves in the process. There was enough room for me to land on the floor, but that was it -- no space to roll over, I was wedged between immovable surfaces. I was on my stomach, naked, and getting to my knees was out of the question.

Help, I've fallen and I can't get up.

I wasn't hurting more than usual -- I was extremely lucky that I hadn't blown a joint on the way down. I was even more lucky that Sheldon was on his way to my house. I kept trying to shift, to find some way out of my imprisonment, until I was exhausted from the effort. If Sheldon had not been about to arrive...well, you can guess what kind of trouble I'd be in.

My cat Dinah came at a gallop. One thing that's always been true about Dinah before that day is she has an abhorrence of touching bare human flesh, avoids it with revulsion. She meowed interrogatively at me and I said "Kitty girl, I've done it this time. I'm in trouble here."

She walked down my bare back and stood on my big white ass -- Mount Jochild, as one friend has referred to it -- while she began yowling at the top of her lungs. I kept trying to reassure her but she wasn't listening to me. In retrospect, I'm certain she was calling for help. She didn't shut up or lower her volume until Sheldon knocked at the door, and even then our first shouted exchanges through the door were over her continued hollering.

I'd had a few minutes to consider my options. Sheldon didn't have keys to my door, but more significantly, I have a keyless deadbolt that was engaged, meaning no one could get in even with keys. I yelled this to Sheldon and told him he'd have to call 911.

Which he did, and they told him to get my apartment management to bring what keys they had. After a few more minutes of nude floor contemplation, I saw a flashing red light and paramedics banged on the door. Dinah vanished at that point, her work done. I yelled to both Sheldon and the paramedics that I was naked and I didn't want to be exposed through the door to whoever was gathering outside, just the rescue folks. They said they understood.

A maintenance guy from the complex who is always tracking people's comings and goings is who brought my spare keys. As predicted, the door wouldn't open. Paramedics began banging on windows, and finally got a lock on the living room window to give. A guy squeezed in and turned the deadbolt. I repeated my request that my nudity be shielded as the first paramedic came in. He and Sheldon both told the maintenance guy to stay out of view. Instead, he pushed through a view spot so he got a long look at me.

I saw him and I pointed at him, screaming "Don't you dare look at me, you creep!" He went away after that. I don't know his name but I've seen him on my patio looking in my windows twice in the past. Something I'll now have to deal with. Problem is, I think he's married to one of the apartment managers and my tenancy here is somewhat tenuous because of disability issues.

I was so mad for a day afterward I wanted to do violence to him, feelings I simply don't have very often.

The paramedics came in, intelligently assessed the situation and my limits, and started the process of getting me upright. The first attempt tore at my left rotator cuff, which took a couple of days to heal. On a second dead lift, they got me into my wheelchair. I heaped thanks on them, their burly sweet majesty. I declined a trip to the hospital, saying "I'm actually due to go for a disability appointment right now." One of them grinned "Well, ma'am, you surely deserve it."

I dressed myself, shaking violently, and somehow Sheldon got me to his car. He had checked in with my disability exam office, and they had my appontment down for an hour later than the forms they had mailed me, so we had a miraculous pad of breathing room. I ate the Big Mac Sheldon had brought me -- few things have ever tasted so good, and I don't even like Big Macs especially -- but my shaking progressed on into rigors.

I made the exam, which was arduous and strange. My BP was very elevated and my pulse very low. The doctor was distant, insisted I wear a mask because of flu risk, and didn't give me much information. A couple of the physical maneuvers he asked me to perform were unexpectedly difficult, revealing loss of muscle tone or nerve function on my left side that I hadn't known about. He said he wanted me to get x-rays and left the room.

When Sheldon came in to wheel me out, he looked at me closely and suggested I wait on the x-rays, I looked done in. I agreed and said I need to use the bathroom. Turns out, their wheelchair accessible bathroom was blocked by equipment. Sheldon calmly moved things around, muscled me through, and I got onto the pot before having violent diarrhea a couple of times. Afterward, I was too weak and shaky to pull up my pants all the way, and Sheldon came in to do that for me.

I didn't think I could make it from the car to my bed, but I did. Sheldon set me up with groceries and supplies, and offered to come back to help clean my place. He's here as I write this, hauling trash. He brought me take-out Chinese (which I haven't had in over a year) and one of his home-made banana walnut muffins. He and Dinah have met, and she's not hiding from him in terror, a first for her.

I'm getting a prepaid cell this week I can wear around my neck when I use my walker at home. Sheldon now has keys to my house, and I'm still pursuing food stamps and home assistance as well as Medicaid and disability. I am a few inches up from the very bottom of the pit I found myself in. And now I've weathered another nightmare.

I want things to get much, much better than this. I have a month's worth of income left, not even part-time work any more, and my endurance is so threadbare, finishing this post has taken days. But I am not alone. I remember Sheldon's long grey hair drifting over my shoulders as he wheeled me into the fresh air, I have General Tso's chicken waiting on me, and I can still write. Plenty on this crisp day, what would have been my mother's 83rd birthday.

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As We Exalt Athleticism Channeled Through The Entertainment Industry...

My suggestions for new Olympic sports:

(1) Contestants must have cruciate ligaments of one knee removed entirely, other knee without cartilage or matching end-plate surfaces, tibial and talar surfaces must also meet at diverging angles, and visible bony outriggers beneath skin on both sides of one knee.
(2) Contestants cannot lift more than 5 lb and should not use abdominal muscles (which are not really avaiable for much anyhow) to change position or exert self.
(3) Current venue precludes rotation of left shoulder.
(4) Both hands exhibit strong tremors during fine motor activity.
(5) Some thumb and finger oppisition is limited or delayed, but this is intermittent (at referees' discretion.)
(6) Asthma flares after a minute of exertion.

CRIPTATHLON challenges to include:

Opening shrink-wrap around almost anything.
Opening "child-proof" medicine caps.
Opening juice and beverage bottles.
Transporting any sort of meal from one room to another while leaning safely on a rolling walker.
Tying shoes.
Pulling up pants if skin is sweaty from exertion.
Getting items from floor three feet away.
Filling out lengthy, repetitive forms in longhand because government websites are always down after 8 years of George W. Bush.
Answering dozens of emails wanting a personal response to "How are you doing? What's new?"
Wiping ass. (Bonus points if contestant has had explosive diarrhea.)

I'm due for a Gold medal but I can't get up on the winner's stand. And will someone please raise my clenched fist into the air for me during the national anthem?

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Diary 7 November 2009

(Westward IV screen shot)

In my e-mail today is an offer from Sandlot Games to pre-purchase the upcoming release of their game Westward IV for half-price. These folks already have my business for several reasons: They have equal or almost equal numbers of available heroines in a variety of races, classes, and body types (yes, fat heroines); they deal with historical realms but frequently contradict the white Western take on how things went down (though the Westward series is terrible about ignoring theft of First Nations territory); the action increasingly relies on smarts and cooperation as much as "battles"; and, thrillingly, the last release Tradewinds Odyssey had a small positive lesbian subplot written into one of the sequences. Now, the opening line of the blurb for Westward IV refers to the villainous railway owner as "patriarchal". Sign me up, kids. Pretty soon they'll be offering women-only vegan collectives who are fighting the criminal justice system and power-sex conflation.

Last night I watched a rather timely PBS Empires episode called "Holy Wars" about Salah Al-Din and his reconquest of Jerusalem during the Crusades era -- his decision to not slaughter or terrorize the Christian population made him a legend among Islamic and Arabic nations, but cut him no respect from the bloodthirsty Christianists of Europe. Like Bushies, they viewed compassion and respect for others as a sign of weakness.

When you have a nation (and city) where prevailing values are adherence to authority, a narrow and base-emotion definition of patriotism, and limited funding for "social" issues, internal violence will be the norm, not the exception.

Dinah finally left my immediate presence for a couple of hours to sleep, which I take as a sign of healing on her part. I'm still not sleeping more than a few hours at a stretch, related to pain. I myself sorted through some of my feelings last night with Martha, mostly having to do with being at the literal mercy of anybody who walked into my hospital room and having little room to say no or insist on autonomy. People think giving advice to those who are ill, pushing them to "do what's best", telling them stories about their own medical experiences or those of their friends & family, and/or generally assuming their thinking and decision-making is somehow impaired even in areas it is clearly not, are all manifestations of caring instead of actually simply being roadmaps to the advice-giver's own emotional blocks about what is going on -- i.e., "here's my difficulty with your difficulty, since you're lying there unable to get away or go find other resources, let me demand you deal with my difficulty right now". No wonder we can't think rationally about a simple health care plan, when we're all so bollixed up with panic about ever being truly sick and helplness ourselves.

Work on it, people. Work on it with each other, that's all I ask. Just like you work on your crap about brown people with other white folks, and your shit about women with other men.

Dinah has discovered the yellow "FALL RISK" bracelet from the hospital that I ripped off my wrist I got home and thinks it is a great toy.

My stamina is still so hammered, typing this much leaves my fingers trembling to the extent I have trouble keeping them in line with QWERTY. I guess I'm done for the time being, need to go lie down again. Dress your children in bright colors, not camouflage, and remember what Mark Twain said: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

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TOO LONG FOR TWITTER AGAIN

(Maggie and Nilmoni cropped from larger photo, 1958 Kolkata, India)

Too long for Twitter, again: Dinah prowled and wailed every half hour all night long. I'd call to her and she'd come at a trot, need extensive contact to stop vocalizing. I had an endless fount of reassurance. I can hardly take in how painful this separation must have been for her. Finally, mid morning, she slept on my chest and then slept two feet away on the bed. Whenever I noticed her eyes opening, I'd tell her how much I love her, need her, missed her.

I found a long-lost cat toy near my bed, which nearly broke my heart -- I can imagine her trying to bring it to me, only to remember I was gone. We played with it for a while. Also have had regular dispensing of treats. Despite her food bowl being empty, she's not lost weight, and she's eaten from the refilled bowl but not ravenously. I think she figured out the big bag of cat food here by my desk was not sealed tight and helped herself, which is a relief.

Early afternoon the news about the shootings at Fort Hood broke into Rachael Ray locally and I followed that off and on, except when KBH or Chris Matthews were on the screen. I can't access wifi in my bedroom on my little netbook and don't have a cord to reach into my study where my main PC is, but at the moment the solitude -- or rather, being alone with Dinah -- is still an enormous pleasure. I need to sleep and dream a lot more. Scenes from Ginny Bates, past and not yet written, keep breezing through my head. They are some kind of palate cleanser for the hospital experience, I think.

I am lucky as Myra (the main character based on me in Ginny Bates, who wins the lottery as well as love). I know much of my luck has faces, names, heartbeats. I am reminded of the poem by my bed, written about in a post of mine at Meta from March 2008:

THE UNDERTAKING

The darkness lifts, imagine, in your lifetime.
There you are - cased in clean bark you drift
through weaving rushes, fields flooded with cotton.
You are free. The river films with lilies,
shrubs appear, shoots thicken into palm. And now
all fear gives way: the light
looks after you, you feel the waves' goodwill
as arms widen over the water; Love

the key is turned. Extend yourself -
it is the Nile, the sun is shining,
everywhere you turn is luck.


(by Louise Glück, from The House on Marshland)

(Dinah above my computer, May 2005)

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Going Home Today

(Mary Jo Atkins Barnett and Maggie, 1955, passport photo for going to India)

When I woke up from the RT shakiing my shoulder at 7 a.m., the Roches were singing in my head "We're going away to Ireland soon" with muted glee. It's been three weeks today since I was admitted, and I cannot account for a lot of that time. My Narrative has defiinitely been interrupted. A lot of memories wade in and out like scenes from a bad 60's "message movie".

Everytime I think about getting out of here, my chest relaxes a little and I breathe better. It will be hellishly hard on my own but no one will be opening my front door without my choice, and no more small talk, which is to conversation as WalMart is to small town main street commerce. Pajamas and keyboard, that's enough for me. (grin)

One thing that has emerged as my attention returned is that my attraction to folks who are looking for a place to tell their troubles has spread up and down the hall, apparently. I'm a better listener than I am storyteller, but at home I have a stopcock to control who dips into my well. Yesterday I earnestly told Erlinda, the tech of techs, how much everyone here admires her quick learning and leadership. She was clocking out for the day, but stayed at my bedside for half an hour to tell me what it was like raising her three abandoned nieces the past 9 years. Honestly, it's a tale I'm honored to have heard, altered my appreciation for others ever upward -- but what is it I do that inspires others to confide in me? In Erlinda's case, I wanted to hear. Otherwise, I am not even watching the daily reruns on cable of "Grey's Anatomy" -- my own body and midstream ordeal is swallowing the lion's share of my focus right now, and as Stuart Smalley would say, "That's okay."

Yesterday as I was warshing up (as one tech says it), I examined the altered corpus Maggie carefully. The blown IV sites and JP drain scab will go away entirely, I think. But the contours of my front are permanently rearranged -- large capstone bulge gone, everything listed to the right, and a wicked ruck from just below my breasts through my navel like the Hayward Fault when viewed from Mount Diablo. There'll be no problem saying "Yep, that's her" if I wind up mangled on some CSI slab.

Surgeons go directly to the source of an issue and tend not to deal with the aftereffects. This is seen as more efficient, as all versions of Henry Ford compartmentalization are now revered as most productive. I always question this ethic but especially now, as I hear the muttered resentment techs have toward nurses (who say "call a tech" for ass wiping) and the sullen obeisance nurses display toward doctors who breeze in and out far more obliviously than even the most gritty TV drama depicts. When we added making a profit to the work of caregiving -- and especially Reagan's permission to be greedy as an America ethic -- we created the monster that our government is currently too feckless to tame.

Thanks to Jill Cozzi, by the way, for reminding me of the excellent meaning of that word, feckless.

In contrast, a Quaker man, Sean Carroll, is arranging for a CarShare to get me home after my discharge today, since he doesn't own a vehicle. He's already done all the shopping I need to be safe-ish at home , except for the correct size diapers, which will arrive via FedEx tomorrow -- although at least 1/3 of all American women weigh 200 lb. or more, this hospital doesn't stock diapers that go beyond that size, nor would they research finding them for me. Thank g*d I was alert enough and able to get online to meet my own basic dignity needs.

You know, lesbian-feminism of the early 1970s is where I first encountered the concept of political correctness, and it's never been a joke to me. At bedrock, political correctness is about striving to express respect and kindness according to cultural values which may vary from the ones you were raised with. Respect, privacy, pluralism: arch enemies of the fear-based Right.

I don't know why, but for the last 24 hours a particular memory has been popping into my head, as it did just now. It's my first memory, and occurred when I was around one year age. We were living in Kolkata and I was out for the day with Nilmoni, my ayah. We were in what my mother called a rickshah, which was in fact a horse-drawn cart with a single horse. We turned into a street clogged with a mob. Nilmoni began shouting at the cart driver to get us out of there, but we were already being surrounded and horses have to be turned, there is no reverse gear. I was in her lap, held tight, and she put one hand over my face to block my vision. I tugged at her fingers ineffectually, then discovered if I opened my eyes I could see between her slightly spread fingers. I went still, watching with interest.

The crowd was all Indian, which was normal to me, I thought I was too. It was all male, and they were angry, but I wasn't worried because I was with Nilmoni. They were holding aloft, above their outstretched arms, two items: a round of bread and a man, passing them toward one side of the street. The man was struggling, wild-eyed, shirtless. It was intriguing to see an adult passed around as easily as I was.

At the side of the street was a two-story building with outside stairs to an upper landing. The stairs had no railing but the landing had a wooden frame around it. A rivulet of the mob swirled up the stairs and the flailing man was passed upward from arm to arm. Someone on the landing had a rope which was tied to the porch. As the man reached the landing, the other end of the rope was knotted around his neck. With a roaring surge, matched by Nilmoni's shrieks at our cart driver, the shirtless man was thrown over the railing in a small arc. He slammed against the side of the building and a seond later reached rope's end. He scrabbled frantically at the stucco wall with fingernails and feet to find a purchase. Before he could, our cart finally turned out of view. I tried to turn my head to watch but Nilmoni held me fast.

I didn't understand what had happened, and there is no negative emotion in this memory, only excitement about curious adult behavior. It is vivid -- the bright sun with dust in the air, hoarse shouting, Nilmoni's smell, and the look on the face of the shirtless man, his dark sweaty skin and the visible ribs on his torso. Years later, when I was six or so, I began telling my mother about the memory to ask her what it all meant; I thought of it often. She sat down heavily in her kitchen chair, her face horrified, repeating "My god, my god."

She knew the incident. Nilmoni had told her about it when we got home that day. They were both reassured by their belief I hadn't seen anything, and did not want to discuss it with me. Mama said the man was from the untouchable class, still a strong practice in 1956, and he had stolen the round of bread.

Now I have two versions of the memory, my original and the unspeakable horror of what actually occurred as Mama gently explained it to me later.

Sorting out this cacophony we call life takes up all our time. I'm going away to Ireland soon, will be home tonight, and can resume my sift in solitude. Aching, incontinent, exhausted, in a mess of a house, but with just me and Dinah to accommodate. There is peace and wonder to be found in any situation, even death, they tell us. I'll write again as soon as I can.

The Roches singing "The Troubles" in 1983

[Cross-posted at Meta Watershed.]

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