The D Spot

Fragile days, these
springtime mornings.
The long drive with
nervous laughter.
We spiral up the parking garage, looking for a spot
closest to the elevator
in anticipation of when it’s over
and you are blasted from the drugs.
I always get lost trying to navigate
the hospital corridors and you laugh,
reminding me that I work there, I should know better.
The wait in the room, the magic push of fentanyl
and the procedure,
as it is.
How you manage this with such grace is beyond me.
Then another long walk
back to the car.
This time I drive.

Here I am back again, with you.
Yes you. You know who you are.
I realized today that I am never alone. I feel you there. I imagine you in the car next to me, walking beside me as I push the cart in the grocery store. Sometimes I think I hear you , whispering just out of the range of my hearing.
I am drawn to you, and I have yet to see your face. I put other people’s faces where yours belongs, and sometimes the fit is close…but not exact.
Who is it that sings me to sleep at night, when the house is quiet and still?
Who is it now, standing just over my shoulder and behind me, watching me type these questioning words.
And what I don’t understand is that, if you are with me all the time, guiding and guarding me…why can’t I ever feel your presence when I am in the dark times? Why do you not come then, when I am alone with my frustrations, my lonliness, my tears? Are you truly that fickle?
What is a guide when the seeker is lost? What is the purpose of being with me, all the time, close but untouchable? Sometimes I long to find a friend yet my arms reach out into nothingness.
I feel like I am searching and looking and trying to scrabble my way on my path and I am not alone. No, for I have you.
Or better put, you have me.
I just wish I knew who you are.

You can always tell the ones who are dying
they are quieter, more polite.
So focused on the inner battle,
trying to maintain the even in and out
a gently erractic pulse;
the ones who are dying are soft spoken,
take a back seat to the drama,
as if knowing that it wouldn’t matter much anyway.
And the ones who aren’t dying
well
You can tell them too.
They are crying yelling
swearing at you with spittle soaked words
Threatening lawsuits
Crawling across the floor in order to
better impress with
histrionics and moans.
Meanwhile,
the quiet one in the chair…
she just slips away
between the time you call security and the time you grab her chart.
Almost too late,
You step over the writhing on the floor
to reach the crash cart.

I am reminded of you this
early spring.
Usually your ghost haunts my summertime nights,
I don’t know why you are here
now
inside my thoughts
reminding me of long ago wishes
and midnight moonlight
and
the sunsets and roses
I saw in your eyes.
The last time I saw you
I barely remember.
the last time I kissed you
I cannot recall.
Those days were so hazy and
we were so young
by the time it was done
I wonder if I ever knew you at all…
I used to feel you, know your thoughts
I’d pick up the phone when you’d barely just dialed.
You threw stones at my window and
sang to me at the dock
by the lake.
You told me your secrets.
You cried with me.
One night of many
breakups
You sang Prince to me
While your mother flirted with my dad in a cigarette cloud.
The last time you left me
in that early summer morning,
I saw reddish highlights in your hair
and we kissed and said
‘later’
Never expecting to
never see
each other
again.

Feeling a sense of impending destiny today…
Not sure from where it originates but anticipation runs high.
Doesn’t feel like meeting an old friend, or getting a surprise phone call.
Not even sure, today, if this implication is even a good thing.
Things are happening for a reason the last few days, inevitably traveling towards a foretold future.
Only problem is that I haven’t picked up my tarot cards in a long time, and my eyes have been blinded to my own forthcoming.
My dreams tell me nothing but tall tales of fancy and impotent longing.
Crow has spent some time with me, yet another speaker of change.
Whatever it is I hope someone holds my hand when it happens.
*******************************************
Old dog watches sadly,
quietly from his place on the floor.
Eyes drooping red-rimmed, he sighs now and then
for effect.
Watching as Mistress labors in her duties.
Now on her knees, scrubbing the floor til it shines.
Mistress stands slowly, popping knees and stretching her back.
She regards him with affection,
her constant companion in all things domestic.
Pats him on the head and old dog thumps his tail,
raising a small poof of dust on the carpet.
He’d smile if he could.
“Good boy,” she says to him,
before turning and getting the vacuum out of the closet.
Old dog lays his head on his paws again with another
theatrical sigh.
Waiting for the next break in Mistress’s daily routine.
Maybe next time she will give him a cookie.

The air-conditioning of my hotel room was a welcome relief after the heat of the party and the summer night. I’d exhausted all my tears finally, having stopped at the beach on my way home and poured my sorrows out to the ocean. Now I just felt empty.
I knew that more tears would come soon…they always did, but now the main thing I was feeling was anger. Anger at myself, for letting myself get into this position and anger at him, for leading me here.
I called room service and ordered a bottle of wine and ran myself a bath, taking off my clothes and putting on the big fuzzy robe provided by the hotel. I had just finished scrubbing the remnants of my mascara off my cheeks when I heard the knock at the door.
“Come on in,” I called from the bathroom. “You can put it on the table.”
“Put what on the table?”
I turned and gasped. He was standing in the doorway of the bathroom.
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Did you come to see me cry?”
He looked genuinely surprised. “No! Of course not! I came to explain, to apologize for the way things went tonight.”
I pursed my lips and reached to turn off the bathwater. “I think I heard everything I needed to hear at the party. You don’t need to say any more.”
“But I do,” he said, stepping into the bathroom.
I backed up so my legs were against the side of the tub. “Please,” I said. “Just go. We should have never have started this and now we just need to end it before it gets out of control.”
He looked at me steadily. “Is that how you really feel?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded my head, unable to talk. My heart screamed at me and I instinctively brought my hands to my chest.
“If I go, I won’t come back” he said evenly. “I came here tonight to tell you that I love you. I ended things with Julie.”
I sat down on the edge of the tub and put my head in my hands. “So now you’re saying that I am responsible for another woman’s heartbreak. Great.” I shook my head.
He came to stand in front of me, and knelt down. Tipping my chin up with his fingers he said “No, it’s not like that. She and I…we were already broken up. I let her put this front on at the party to save face. She’d already planned it and invited people. We haven’t been together for two weeks. It was all a show.”
“Really?” I said, looking deep into his eyes. Hope surged but I fought to keep it at bay.
“Really,” he said, with a smile. He took my hand and helped me rise. “Now, is there room in that tub for two?”

that sense of disconnect…
where did you go?
How did you get so far away from me
and why now,
after all this time?
I look around corners,
expecting to see you or to
hear your voice.
My sighs echo in the silence
of your loss.
Things seemed pretty good..
if not perfect, at least closely so…
Yet here I am alone,
wondering how to find my way back to you
when it seems to me
that you are the one who got lost
in the first place.

Last night was our local, annual “Light the Night” walk to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. We have done it every year since my husband got diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (Jan 2002).
This year I missed the walk because I had to work. I wish I had been there. Something about the red and white balloons flashing as we walk in the dark brings a tear to my eyes.
My husband raised $1000, earned a special T-shirt and got brought up on stage with the other high-earners.
I am so proud of him.
Not just because of the money he raised.
I am also proud of him because he has lived–and lived well–with what is still considered a terminal illness for over 6 years now. He has been an example to others, a support, and he has always, always, remained positive.
Sure, those first couple weeks were scary. He was SICK. We were SCARED and we didn’t have access to the medicine we have now. I had to give him injections that made him brutally ill.
Once he started Gleevec however, life returned to normal within days. Literally.
And he has been fine pretty much ever since. We had one episode where he was out of remission and he is now on the max dose of Gleevec.
Is the second remission a durable remission? Not always.
But right now, there is no trace of the cancer marker in his body.
None. Zero. Zip.
We’ll take it, even if it is only for a few years. He was 35 when he got diagnosed; that is much younger than average. At that point, the doctor told me he would have 5 – 9 years to live.
Well, its been close to 7 and no sign of trouble exists. With the newer medicines (the Second-generation gleevecs that are coming out), there is no estimated survival time, just the thought that its a longer survival time than ever.
We have perfectly matched bone marrow from his brother on ice at the hospital. He will go to transplant when—and if—-he needs it.
But for now…he is fine.
I am so proud of him.

As I scrubbed my kitchen clean this morning, I started thinking about the roles of women in modern society.
I was sadly disturbed when I realized that things have only changed on the surface, but underneath, the same-old stereotypes are running rampant in today’s society.
While its true that many of us are not wearing our pearls a-la June Cleaver, its also true that society still expects us to fulfill our ‘womanly duties’.
The new age of feminism proclaims we can have it all–the career, the family, and all the money we can earn.
However, the unspoken trade we make in such an agreement is that while we can have it all if we want it…we are still responsible for the general feeding, clothing, and upkeep of our respective families.
Go to work, burst that proverbial glass ceiling. Buy the expensive car on your own salary and wear all the business suits you want….
but don’t forget to pick up milk and diapers on your way home, make a healthy dinner before you take the kids to soccer practice, and remember that you have three loads of laundry waiting to be washed, dried and folded before you can go to bed and succomb to yet more womanly duties.
Yeah, the modern world holds so much for the modern woman.
The 50/50 break that we were somehow promised in the heyday of the 80’s hasn’t truly materialized. Where did Mr. Mom go?
Back to the boardroom, by the looks of it.
And he still comes home at 530 each day, expecting his meal and his newspaper.
We women rush around, proudly sporting the label of ’soccer mom’ while underneath I suspect there seethes a growing discontent in the uneven amount of responsibility we have somehow accrued.
Where is ’soccer dad?’
Hell, where is “laundry and vacuum dad’ for that matter.
I swept and mopped and vacuumed today because since I worked the last two days, everything I cleaned and maintained on my previous days off had fallen by the wayside.
I cannot be the only one facing this absurdity and clear misbalance of power.
And I hope to God I am not the only one who feels this way.
I say buy an apron for your man, ladies. Come home from work, take off your shoes, and ask what’s for dinner. Act pissily surprised if you are told that nothing is ready yet.
And don’t forget to leave the laundry.

So the first dream was that my husband R was in an airplane. The tail broke off, the airplane crashed and everyone died. I was devastated. I remember crying in the dream and having people comfort me.
I woke up shaken.

Got out of bed (after making sure R was breathing!) and walked around a bit. Got back to bed, back to sleep…

The next dream was the same airplane, same crash, but R survived. A doctor…somewhere, in my head I think…told me that even though he survived the crash, he had contracted a virus that would kill him in three days.
R seemed fine, we were not totally convinced he would suddenly die in 3 days. I went to work, he went to work. The second day he went to some kind of movie/comic convention out of town.

I remember I wanted to go, was jealous and nervous he was there alone so close to the third day. He stayed the night and called me the morning of the third day. He sounded really sick..congested, coughing etc. I told him he’d better come home right away, that maybe the prediction was coming true. He told me no, he was fine, he wanted to stay with his friends. I got off the phone with him and knew I would never see him again.

I woke up with the impression he’d died.
*
Horrible stuff, huh?