Category: Personal essay

Pt.II: Tales from a Surprising Knee Surgery (Into a Land of Unreality)

The fourth night home from the surgical center, my heart went into A-fibrillation, the arrythmia that can be an aggravation or a deadly event. I was exhausted, felt ill and my chest hurt so I called 911. Breathless as the heart rapped out its syncopated, galloping beats, and pain radiating everywhere from the knee. The medics couldn’t get me downstairs from the second floor with a gurney and so carried me to outdoor steps, whereupon they asked if I could get down them if they held me under my armpits. I half-walked to the ambulance. Marc followed us in his car.

The hospital ER was quiet, oddly; I was seen quickly. The staff seemed almost listless. But the ER doctor gave me the correct medicines for both nausea and A-fib; things got manageable. I felt more safe to return home after four hours. However, the last moments left a sour taste.

The RN said there were no wheelchairs with feet rests that could be lifted so my legs– the operative one being stiff– could be held straight up. He said in an offhand manner, “We can improvise with a broom on the wheelchair I have, like this”–he showed me how he’d try to rig it, absurdly– “and you can put your leg on top of the broom that you sit on. Or walk to your car.”

I was shocked. My knee stabbed with pain as I walked down the corridors and to Marc in the car. I grumbled about such inefficiency in the ER. Shortly, the RN opened the car door for me, slammed it shut and left without another word.

I was to call 911 two more times in the first 6 weeks due to A-fib. Luckily, things settled before greater intervention was required. My thudding heart went awry in response to pain, nausea, new medicine and lack of sleep.

That night in emergency I had also presented a newly sore, strange looking interior of my mouth, thinking it might be thrush. I had had thrush decades prior after taking three antibiotics for a resistant dental infection, so I knew antibiotics are a common cause. My ER doctor, though, had thought not. But I had been given an infusion of strong antibiotics during knee surgery and again the day afterwards. Antibiotics can wipe out good bacteria, and the effects include fungal infections. I spoke with my dentist. Amazingly, though she was on a CO. ski trip, she concurred with me. She prescribed a strong anti-fungal…though it would likely cause more nausea with GI disturbances.

In the end I declined to take it–enough stomach troubles!– but worried. I could taste nothing, my tongue was so tender that drinking water felt wrong. This was more reason to eat little to nothing. Applesauce. A piece of banana. I lost 6 pounds in 10 days. How was I to start healing if I felt badly every minute? Not to say weaker.

I have a friend, a retired medical professional; she offered a suggestion. She said to try steeping black tea bags several minutes, soaking a cloth in the tea, then wiping my mouth and tongue gently. Black tea, I learned, is anti-fungal and antiseptic. I gave it a try 3-5 times a day. In four days the thrush was gone. I tried to eat, my tastebuds still off. But matters improved each day.

I took anti-nausea medicine longer. The pain from the surgical site robbed me not only of energy and much coherent thought, but my appetite. It was an act of will to drink fruit smoothies, eat more solid food. I had begun to stop the tramadol, the moderate pain killer. (It had created intestinal blockage as noted before; my gastroentrologist helped me get through that.) So, Tylenol was the best I could do. It barely alleviated discomfort. I was becoming slightly accustomed to the deep burn of hurt in knee and leg. But I learned to use a walker when I had to get up.

My life was literally rearranged during this time. I now slept in the living room on a twin bed we moved there. There was no way I could daily get to the second floor and primary bedroom, or back down those stairs. So Marc slept nearby in a recliner. Every night. If I awakened, he heard me stir and was at my side. If I needed to use the bathroom, he was up and at my elbow. If I bolted up in bed at four a.m. racked with tears of agony and despair, he held me. If I began to protest, told him to get needed rest, I was just a mess but I’d be ok, he did not move. He knew I wasn’t going to be okay. Not like before all this had transpired. Not for a long time, perhaps.

It was disorienting at first lying in that bed in the main room, watching night cloak the space in soft shadow and then rays of sunlight seep and spread. And watching juncoes, wrens and sparrows pecking at the suet block under the balcony roof. It was the thing I waited for each day: to observe nature at work. I was thrilled when I got a close up view of a flicker. I gazed through dark emerald pines and bare maples, glimpsed purplish mountains beyond– if it didn’t rain. It nearly always rained part of the day. It even snowed a few days, transforming the view with radiant white. It all comforted me, especially the watery drumming on all like a lullaby.

It seemed like a movie set, the whole thing. I was… myself yet not myself, at all, wandering through a spiral of time beyond time, but captive by my howling body. I drowsed, half-dreamed, twitched and turned with each stimulus of myriad reminders: cut tissue; rearranged muscle, tendons and ligaments; the hammered bones, the titanium objects that made a new and improved knee. Was it? How could all this fall out convince me? My flesh felt heavier at night. Confounding. Something I wished to cast off even as I felt compassion for the animal it was. I was.

But then, hummingbirds– Anna’s hummingbird, the only one remaining through Oregon winters. They hovered at the sliding glass door, peering in while I looked out from bed or recliner. Tears filled my tired eyes when I first saw them come to their feeder. They were used to me sitting or standing outdoors near them. They usually came to greet me and hover before my face , gape at me as I gaped back: gorgeous black shining eyes, surprising plummage. They seemed a good omen. That they’d look inside and see me waving was a joy. Maybe I’d manage to heal, stand on the balcony as they came to vibrate bright air between us. Some day.

In the midst of this, half-helpless the moment my knee was ransacked and replaced, there was physical therapy. No excuses; I had to go even though I didn;t sleep or eat well. Within a week post-surgery, I attended my first session. I had no idea what was going to occur in that tidy room or I might have left.

The PT studied my leg, then grasped it carefully but firmly, saying, “This will be hard; you’ll hate me now but love me later. Your leg looks pretty good but it can’t stay straight, it must bend.”

I have known several hard times medically and violent assaults in the long ago past–but never before have I known that new level of misery. K. slowly but with considerable might began to bend my intensely resistant knee. Ot felt like it screemed. Or it was me as tears flooded my cheeks. I clamped my mouth shut. She paused and handed me a tissue box and said, “It’s ok, cry it out. You will get through it…. it’s just the beginning. “

That would become thefirst thing to get beyond three then two times a week. And the knee with swollen tissue and shocked bones began to relent under her calm extertions. There were degrees of flex we needed to reach each week, before scar tissue built up and impeded range of motion. Not a good thing to allow, sometimes requiring more surgery. She was right; I very much disliked seeing her and was relieved when assistants took her place and I could move onto the next thing. But the worst was not going to happen if I could help it. Some sessions I came close to the degrees we needed; other times I lost ground.

At almost five weeks my bent knee reached the 120 degrees angle K. expected to occur, and it was like winning a grueling event. I’d done it; we’d succeeded. I texted my family and groups of friends. I was fianlly able to see progress.

Meanwhile, there are other exercises to get done. At home I pushed myself hard and learned that taking many deep breaths helped with a prayer. But in time the therapy imbued me with not only soreness but relief and gratitude. I was getting stronger. I was no longer utterly helpless; each action tackled gave me hope. I found unexpected sources of energy and endurance. When I was depleted, it was just there more often than not. I did my exercises every day. Every single thing that hurt so much informed me: do not look back, keep going. Every momentary failure addressed me: just keep going. Each morning I awakened with greater tender swelling so I applied ice packs several times a day. And it concentrated my mind set: don’t you give up; work; recover; be brave–find the courage despite pain and uncertainty. Marc held his breath when I cried out but I shook my head at him: no comfort neeeded now, I was going to be alright.

Pray. That’s what I did every day, too. Sometimes prayers don’t manifest in words. They are formed by soul sounds uttered softly. Or in echoing depths of silence. And I talked to my knee: oh my beautiful, beautiful, blessed knee, may you be brave with me. Does it seem strange to do this? It was necessary. My hands soothed it tenderly after staples were removed and the long wound closed. I let warm water fall over it, a tiny tropical river from the shower as I sat bent over on a shower chair. I felt so old. Frail at those moments. Small, humbled, to be brought to this. But it is not true that one is stripped of dignity when challenged much. Things change and then survival reigns. Dignity is the soul coming forward and embracing the sharp brokeness until it all yields, mends, and one finds a way to become a resilient whole again. No matter what that may look like, at first. There is a complicated harmony within the body’s own mastery and the greater mind that is forgotten in darkest times. More potent than malaise, that sacred symmetry can be restored, secretly, in minute ways. And that is a wonder.

But it was a place I never thought to be. I mean, small, weak and exposed as my husband waited to aid me with every basic need. When did I ever lean on him or anyone else to such an extent? I had to surrender. It was important to have routines. Each morning, afternoon or night, the flow of warm water seemed an annointing. Putting on fresh clothing eased discomfort. It would have been easier to give and an lay in bed, not try harder. But I’d get through the movements and then, eyes closed, I held tight the threads of hope God and I had spun. The ruined knee was learning to bend, the joint and sinew had to resurrect at an invisible cellular level to regenerate stamina. Power. Gratitude mixed with common exhaustion shaped my hours more often.

Without progress I would not make it in this world. I must be able to be outside any time I can choose. To walk and breathe freely. I had to hike again. I had to absorb, face to face, flowers’ breath, run my fingers over sponge of mosses, gaze at the pines swaying in gusts, my long grey hair tossed and tangled: God lived out there as well as within. So I had to move past previously unfathomable hardships. Just deal with a new clumsiness. How strange that one leg would not do what its encouraging twin did with ease.

I placed my healthy leg against the wounded one and instructed: “Heal.” I touched my lips and cheek atop offended knee and felt its heat, which told me that though it was still dealing with invasions from surgeon and the sci-fi-like robotic assists, it was rebuilding.

And my body did its work despite worry or resignation. I felt a stirring of optimism. I told everyone I felt better, smiled more–because I really did.

Then, at not quite three weeks, I felt a more tender, oddly swollen spot on my operative leg’s lower calf and thought: I have a blood clot.

I was right. After an ultrasound I was whisked to ER once more and treated for the small blood clot with a potent blood thinner. I had hoped for a magic shot of a clot buster and then out the door. I was told I was lucky to have a clot in the calf, not above the knee, where it more easily moved up, up, to the lungd, heart or brain. I wondered about the strong blood thinner. I was already taking aspirin for a twenty year diagnosis of coronary artery disease. I’d also had a very bad experience with a previous RX blood thinner. But no one wants a blood clot to migrate upwards. The new medication would help stabilize the clot and keep more from forming. Hopefully. The only thing I had to keep an eye on was any sign of internal bleeding. Otherwise, in a few months the clot would be reabsorbed and no longer deemed any threat.

Does one feel grateful about such pronuncements? I was. I was no longer very shocked by every surprise. Given pause, sure–really, how much more? But I accepted it for what it was: another hurdle now better surmounted.

I went home feeling reassurred. I could keep up my exercises. Time slipped by as I continued on the daily work, as well, of mental well-being–reading, meditating to music, getting outside as the weather allowed, even to stand in the open air. I was busy visualizing healing and wholeness. I was open to all prayers offered. I had visits from friends and family. There were times I felt a sweep of great love fill me.

Marc was less anxious about me as progress was noted. However, I still felt wiped out every day. I often was overcome with a bone-deep weariness accompanied by breathlessness and a cold sensation of sudden weakening as I leaned against the dining room table or sat down on the steps leading to my bedroom. Why was I not feeling more energetic yet? I was sleeping and eating better. My digestion seemed ok with no apparent bleeding–I watched for it. My hands and feet got way too cold, fingertips and toes could go white and numb. I at times felt light headed, almost empty in a physical and mental way. But I was managing alright, otherwise. I checked in with my surgeon’s team regularly and spoke as needed with the GI team. (I could not talk to my primary care provider because she was too busy, no appointments open for weeks, which angered me.)

But something important wasn’t right. I needed more help. The realization filled me with a creeping anxiety. But I did not fully realize what the odd symptoms signalled. Maybe I had to believe that I was going to be well and was in denial. But the next event would be beyond anything the knee replacement experience had presented: a life threatening state.

It was fate– or more likely a bona fide miracle– that a soft spoken, attentive doctor I had never met happened to have an immediate time slot available for a follow-up of the last ER visit. And what he said and did changed everything.

(Next time, Part III of this tale)

Saturday’s Musings: One Year to the Next

12/22/22

The wind is showing off it’s strange power again, slinging ice and tiny snowflakes, singing the trees, shaking and pressing whatever it can. The windows creak, perhaps even bend. I am listening, thinking of different snowstorms in my life…the glittering white stoles hugging earth and houses, so bright upon my shoulders as my wood and metal sled carves grooves behind me. Explorer and dreamer…hearty and tender: children learn much by crossing paths with winds-but winter wind! That brittle cold smarting faces, eyes streaming from the sting of it, and happiness shimmying through the blood. I am a wintered child who fell in love with all the seasons. But even now as I listen to the tossing of maples and oaks and impossibly tall pines, and the night lengthens in a landscape glazed with treachery of ice—even tonight, winter’s spirit lingers within me like a dear old friend sipping cocoa and telling stories, her eyes glistening, her hair a crown of icicles.

I imagine if I saw my reflection in a still river, an iced river, there’d be snow flowers around my face, my eyes a wintered blue, my lips red as holly berries, my cheeks creased with age and happiness.

12/25/22

The sleet and snow slip away, leaving tuneful riverlets of water. And all the care, time, hopes and decor so merry soon merge, but then become an unexpected experience. One daughter cancels flights due to the spector of illness; my son fulfills lengthy last minute obligations. Another daughter is split between too-tender memories seeded in loss, a tradition shared with the lost one…and us parents who wait with a holding-close and many gifts. My sister arrives, then waits with her shaggy dog on her broad lap. She cannot easily– for long– suss out the meaning of Russian teacakes and fancy chocolates, of jubilant carols and a dressy tree winking in waning day’s gloom. Does she wait for the ghost of her partner or for one more explanation of why we are here? Both, both. I lean into her, tossle her white waves. We sing “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” Every word is remembered in her soft alto.

But there comes the youngest daughter hauling bags of goodies and family through the colder dusk. We plunge into laughter, eat too many Christmas tacos, and the little twins’ exclamations and giggles rustle the air like spangles of light tossed high. They are electric energy given flesh and soul. Love can be a net of sweet burning stars like this. Love, too, the rippling echoes between our words. And Love is Christ born with nothing but Light, helpless and bawling in a manger next to the cows and sheep, with hardship and power awaiting him. Such creatures and Divinity meeting up…I have not fogotten.

But my family looks small around the oak table this year. Longing stirs a depth with few limits… for a moment. How can I seek more when abundance is so great? I take hands closest to me and squeeze lightly. And return squeezes pulse through the circle. I am inexplicably gifted with this. Too many are not.

And then there are none inhabiting the day but the two of us, husband, such an old friend, and me.

The house draws into itself; a multitude of candles flicker yellow and bright, cast dancing halos onto the table, walls. They soften the over-full mind and rich air. A heater that masquerades as woodstove emits more warmth as I watch through windows. Gathering night is opaque until a distant glimmer spreads, coloring a distance beyond the mountains. The bird seed on our balcony overlooking more pines has been pecked and eaten.Where do the hummingbirds go as arctic wind sweeps the tree branches? They will return in the morning, hungry, knowing they’ll be fed.

Nothing nurtures more wholeness than simply living a life– in a constancy of faith, in expectancy of more affection given and received, in small amazements, a wonder that circulates in breath and blood. I am a being known and cared for; I was given a name that someone calls out even if I am not listening well. I have to do nothing important, only stay true to what resonates within me, practice kindess and courage. Keep on.

12/31/22

And so it is the eve of an impending new year. I imagine it’s causing a hullabaloo in far-flung locations even now. Here? A cooling mocha in hand, anticipation of leftover linguini piccata, the oddness and satisfaction of words welcomed and released, a design across blankness. A practice of intention made more meaningful.

Yes, of course, the calendar flips soon. Yet the art of leaving anything or anyone is not so hard, anymore. I remember years of intense farewells, savoring each goodbye to the previous year–relationships and projects, places and accomplishments, false starts, worn out or satiated desires, and wounds too stubborn–but it’s like gazing backward down a too-long hallway. There I went, offering roses and asking forgiveness as if it mattered so much. Was I so impressed with my life that I had to mourn and memorialize a year’s transition? As if it was a mighty ship disappearing while passing an incoming vessel that brought—well, what? One never knew. That was the tricky thing, no matter my resolve to do this or that. That part is not different than happened before: life, the great surprise as it reveals itself. Before then, we can only imagine.

I find it easier as I get older to let go of the year that is fleeing. All the sore spots and balms of pleasure; the people well or poorly loved; the dramas and inconsequential hours, and goals that ended in a heap. Why cover events again? It takes too much and means so little, in the end.

I’d rather consider traversing interior and exterior landscapes. Variations of light and shadow play tag in my mind. The moss and ferns and rocks and waters. And moving among birds: Coopers hawks sskin-tingling calls, waiting for the eagle pair to hunt. The hummers that have hovered long and steady right before my eyes, one of which greets me daily. The secret lives of so many bugs. The slinky worms and shy butterflies. You know–this prowess of nature right beyond the door.

Three new friends were discovered this year!– just as we each needed. As I had longed for during the loneliest bits. Now, coffee and croissants; river walks; book and music and a spattering of health talk. Sharing as if we knew each other longer, better. The plain wisdom of trust. We jump in because it feels worth it.

The, too, helping create countless pictures with glue, glitter and sparkly pipe cleaners and markers: the genius of two 3 and 1/2 year olds’ ingenuity, what a joy. The relief of their lack of self-judgment or of others. They are at one with their feelings, and I marvel at it. My legs have been tugged and ringed with hugs as I cannot now get down on my knees–until one is fixed.

There have been stunning heartbreaks that have changed my very thoughts and actions; I pray them back to God. The wild and curated beauty have pulled me into sudden revelations, warmed my soul until all was bright once more. Human healing never quite ends whether body or spirit. And how fortunate that is so–we are made to utilize restorative processes, some unconscious.

But wait, I am beginning to fall prey to taking stock when I would rather move on. So this is a simple goodbye to this year as it slips into another, per the calendar. And it’s anybody’s guess what it will bring.

This year’s map for me is a schemata in pencil: there are notable events in January, particularly, but I can erase and alter to an extent. Right now it points to The Knee Surgery to fix a three-times-torn meniscus plus surprising if moderate arthritic wear and tear. And the work toward recovery, then hearty pain-free walking and hiking, once again–at last. I keep telling myself that so much cannot hinge on a right knee repair, yet it does. I am a restless person. Moving at will is central to many delights and fulfillment. I have not given up the hope of more ice skating, even a lazy circle around a rink. Of climbing a gnarly path a good seven to ten miles, wherever I choose to go. An enthusiatic wiggle and pivot and shuffle with snappy fingers to rhythmic music. Surrendering to this circumstance has been a struggle over the last twelve months. It is surprising how one’s deeper personal power can be accessed with less ranting and thrashing about.

The wind spirit is almost quiet tonight, as if letting the rest of nature recover. The chilling winter rains have swollen our rivers so that a few slip over impotent banks. Sodden earth has unhinged many trees, branches strewn artlessly. I am so tied to rains here that, even when it falls, I listen to it on an “app”–which states that rainstorms recorded at Stonehenge. Well, whatever it is, such downpours soothe me as I sink and rise in dreams.

This is not the winter of my greater dreams, nor of my childhood. It is the winter of this moment. I do reside within it like a welcome visitor. I smooth a worn, woolen gold-woven throw over my lap and sip the sweet and slightly bitter mocha. Let the world celebrate tonight if it can. I no longer feel an urge to dance madly in the streets; that already happened a few times– it may happen again. But tonight I will be listening to Villa-Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5”. It is gorgeous, enigmatic, goes right to the heart. Then a few pages of a new murder mystery set in Tuscany. Another inconsequential episode of daily life, a good night–no matter which year it is. After all, much of what we see is what we are looking for, isn’t it? I am searching for more goodness and illumination.

I send to all my good wishes for a more peaceful New Year. May your worries be far less than your wonderment.

Cynthia

Tuesday’s Thoughts: The Farewells We Make

I have been on a few lovely meanders recently. I had hoped to share decent beach photos and experiences. I still intend on doing that. Just not now. I have had many good intentions the last few years, then had to change my plans. Alter my expectations. It’s the way it is: none of us is protected from a halt-and-change-route kind of life, and we have to do it many times, at that.

Within the next 12 hours my sister Allanya’s partner, Skyler, will be leaving this realm for the next. It was not unimaginable that it might be sooner than later–she has been unwell for years– but not this soon. And I was hoping not this way. Oregon has the legal option of a physician-assisted death. And this is Skyler’s decision.

Of course, I have been mired in quandry– as have most who are part of the extended family. And some numbness. I can’t begin to sort out all my thoughts and emotions regarding this determination after her being in hospice care a short time. I have been trying to make it somehow align with my view of living and dying in my confused brain for a couple of weeks; it was to have happened in July. Then the date was changed. Suddenly last week on the way home from our beach trip I was informed I had to soon say goodbye to her. Yet another family member.

There has been no time to “prepare” myself. How does one do that in this circumstance, really? How do we ever prepare for death of those that have taken up time and space in our days and nights, our hearts? There are many sorts of death, and have been mourning a few of them– in this country and abroad. And now at home. What do I do with the plunge into the depths of it?

I breathe fully as I awaken another day, and meditate, pray and walk, listen to music, write, reach out. Everyday things can reshape so much. Another human being can soften the blows some.

She–Skyler– will be the eighth person to die in a few years. Many of you know we lost a granddaughter only last spring. My family is shrinking each year, to the point where I almost wonder when another must leave us…It happens usually in the spring. Beauty arrives; death follows. It is a river of grief and I float in it more than I think I can manage, but it is a most human thing. We all must do it; we learn how to do it.

I don’t make any judgment of her choice, even if I understand almost nothing of it and I don’t like it. I can note that Skyler is in her eighties, has been ill and in pain for many years with many ups and downs. I believe she has thought of this long and hard and believes this is best. But it still doesn’t seem simple. It doesn’t add up right now in some meaningful way I can grasp or feel fine about. Perhaps one day, perhaps never. But it is just not my life or death. I have cared about the woman my sister has loved. I will miss her and cherish the good memories shared. But right now I am confounded as well as feeling the sadness creep in as I anticipate a very hard day tomorrow. And the others after.

I am much more focused on my sister, her impending gigantic loss and compounded sorrows. It’s a grief she has tried to fend off… even if she has also worked on accepting such a possibility for years. I will spend alot of time with her for a long while to come, driving across the city whenever she wants me there. I imagine packing lunches and sitting outdoors in the sunshine with her. Telling her stories and hearing hers. Walking her dog through lush grass. Crying, crying, and holding her. (Waiting for her laugh, triggering it. She has the best gutsy laughter. But that will come again later and not for a long time.)

The thing is, I soon gain medical power of attorney for the rest of Allanya’s life because she has dementia. I am five years younger than Allanya and yet I am now helping manage her life more and more. She was a powerhouse and I still feel that in her, her strength and intelligence. She is lucid and present and cheerful–until just lately–if also increasingly lacking decent short term memory. I will be needed in ways I cannot even anticipate, though she is living in a good assisted living residence.

I cannot know how she is truly experiencing this. We are as close as sisters can be, the very best friends. But still her mind and feelings are not mine; her life has changed in essential ways and will be more altered so soon. I cannot understand this wholly. We will weep and weep more. But I seek ways to build better bridges to her heart and mind so I may continue to walk with her during the coming years.

What this all means to me and our family goes far beyond this clumsy language. But I wanted to share this much; I know I am not the only person in these situations. We are called to be expansively loving and courageous and also strong when family members–or, yes, others–need us more and more. And so I will do my best to answer that call again.

If I don’t post here for awhile you now know why. I will write and post as I can. I have truly missed being here regularly, as well as reading more of your great blogs this spring.

I sure hope you seek and find the illuminating, small wonders, and grab and share every good moment with those you love, and just keep on keeping on. It is a such mammoth mess of a world…we need to survive heartaches the best we can and discover more ways to love life even more. To do good work and cherish what matters most.

At least, that is what I aim to keep doing, moment by moment. Tears are not the worst part. Not honoring life with compassionate presence and curious attentiveness may be the worst, I think.

Til next time…sending good will out to you.

Wednesday’s Words/Nonfiction: Library Week! The Countless Words To Guide Us

Photo by Rafael Cosquiere on Pexels.com

To imagine a world without books is impossibly hard. As I look around my home I can see I never intend to do so. I haven’t once bothered–or dared–to count them. I have sorted, passed on and re-sold physical books numerous times, have bought new volumes (and read a few online). I often buy books for gifts and rarely turn down a good freebie in a streetside Little Free Library or languishing in a cardboard box by trash receptacles. It’s not that I will read anything at all…we do have our preferences…but, then again, if there was nothing at hand but an ancient census report, I would gladly read that. And read it again. I am definitely one of those who reads fine print on packaging, randomly peruses dictionaries and reads every sign that catches my fancy on a road trip. So one might conclude it is the basic act of noting letters, then reading them that “rings my bell”. Perhaps that’s partly true–it lights up that language portion of human brain instantly–but only a small part of the story.

I like to learn about almost anything. To be gathered into another’s life or informed of another culture or to ride the wave of an epic tale. I like to find the path in storyland and follow it with mind and arms open, whether fact or fiction. Books, books, books. They are friends and teachers, distractors and challengers, quiet partners in my life.

And I write of this as it is National Library Week in the USA; School Librarian Day was April 4th. And April 16 is National Librarian Day. A time to consider how fortunate we are to have books at our fingertips–or not far away. Library books are a blessing shared by the community with ever changing and diverse residents. Hopefully, this week even more people, young and older, will take advantage of it.

I have much to consider when I consider how books have helped shape and even transform my life. Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames, R.N. kept me up late with my flashlight as a 9 year old. I devoured books for fun, but I was also reading because I also was writing my own stories and plays and poems by then…I was learning by osmosis, perhaps. But later I read a variety of works by poets Denise Levertov, ee cummings, Theodore Roethke, William Wordsworth and Kahlil Gibran– as well as wide ranging writers as Hermann Hesse, Dag Hammarskjold, or Pearl Buck and John Steinbeck, for a few examples. They each strongly impacted me both as a young writer and spiritual seeeker. Books and their libraries were good escapes, yet also a deeper balm for the troubled youth I was. Reading provided me with greater perspective and stimulated more hope. More than a few times, what I sought and discovered helped me keep my head above water. They still can have the same power for children and youth.

I read as a hungry creature grazes in a field of delectable offerings, often and with excitement. I most often read not what any class reading lists recommended… and have not ever been in a book club. But I’ve made it a weekly, even daily, habit to study multiple book reviews or simply wandered through libraries and bookstores, on the lookout for the next fitting volume.

Recommendations, anyone? Let’s talk it over–I’d give it good thought. I do enjoy swapping personal preferences, such as with my neighbor today.

Public and school libraries have been particularly important because they require only a library card and my time and respect. They are ubiquitous in this country–and free! I like them so much that when we travel, Marc and I often seek out local libraries. And any ole bokstore, of course. To see what there is on offer, to experience the electric yet cocooning, amiable energy the presence of books in hands perpetuates. I’ve visited tiny, dusty libraries that have perhaps not purchased new books for years yet offer many gems. And light-dappled, multi-storied, shiny buildings I could move into with sleeping bag to spend a year or more. (The stalled novel I wrote features a country library in several scenes, so that tells me something.)

In elementary school I anticipated library hour as much or more than most other things in the school week. I lingered as long as feasible, content with browsing then slipping a book from its cozy place within the company of like-minded books. The librarians–rarely stern ones, the mythical library policers of the stacks– were eager to help aid me. And they seemed to know everything, or could find out in a flash. Best yet, I was often pointed toward resources to find out my own answers. Patient and appreciative of young, inquisitive minds, librarians were congenial and supportive watchers over children as we strove to enlargen our minds, stoke imaginations. On the way home, I hugged my “find” close, eager to get reading if only between other activites until bedtime. –It is this way even now.

I grew up in a city that was fortunate to have wonderful arts, sciences and other educational facilities. Our public library was one designed by Alden B. Dow, a protege of Frank Loyd Wright. It opened in 1955 and was contemporary by common standards, with its angularity and stark elegance and turquoise trim (or perhaps a wide flashing) right below the roof edge. It had floor to ceiling windows that overlooked lush landscaping. It had a big study space that was open to a second floor mezzanine with more rooms: more books. The smells and colors and shapes… I was transported being there.

As a kid, I made myself comfortable in the children’s ample room with a pile at my feet. Later on, I sat huddled over books read for academic needs or pleasure, soaking up the hush of a place that harbored readers and those who researched. The wooden drawers of card catalogs held more than I could begin to think of; I took my time thumbing through them, as one thing led to another. Among the aisles between tall shelving I found nonfiction sections as fascinating as fiction or poetry sections. How could there be that much to investigate? Awe, perplexity, and pleasure flooded my being.

It was a pleasure to enter the high-ceilinged two-story building and so difficult to leave. Time evaprotated. A visit might also be a ruse for meeting friends (or a boyfriend), during which we’d surround oursleves with tomes then whisper intently back and forth or write furious notes. But more often visiting the library meant a treasure trove to delve into, plus a pause from life’s ordeals and uncertainties. I felt at home in the grand but often undefined scheme of things more than in most places. The library: sanctuary, a repository of wide-ranging wisdom, a safe place for bookish entertainment, a haven for those who thirsted after curious places and peoples which lay beyond those sturdy walls.

Of course, there were magazines as well, and music, then movies and over the years surprising things (we can check out all sorts of odd and useful items at our present library). Most of which I don’t utilize, I’m afraid. My priority has remained simple book hunting.

The greatest feature: all the public is welcome. Everyone can be sparked by the thrill of learning, nourished by engaging or challenging tales. Or a quiet nook with a comfy chair within which one may doze, reading material in hand. The word library means simply a collection of books or bookshop; in Old English etymology it is a “book hoard.” Makes sense to me.

One view of part of my childhood’s Grace A. Dow Memorial Library, Midland, MI-–in this shot, magazines take front and center, as does the view. Ahhh…

When Covid-19 roared into our lives and many public places became inacessible, I turned to online offerings of local libraries (and virtual bookstores). Though I greatly missed prowling the stacks of our smaller city branch, I was glad to browse and put “on hold” many titles to later pick up. In fact, I chose more books than I might have otherwise; it became a meditative experience to search and find. I read a wider variety as there was more time than ever. (I also read more and differently to further inspire my own writing; the more I read the more I always learn.) But I also enjoyed lining up with other people to get the choices in hand. We began to converse as we waited for the librarian to bring out our orders to an outdoor shelving unit. It was a pleasant ritual in otherwise worrisome months… then more months.

When our actual library doors opened again, only 5 people were allowed in fifteen minutes at a time. But what surprising happiness! I could see it in everyone as they browsed and fingered books and other items: a sense of contented relief, just for a brief spell. I am certain that those who visited libraries online or in person have felt that this has been a favored event. Perhaps it was even a lifesaver, emotionally. When all else was fraught with fear or loneliness, health issues–that loss of bearings in society at large–we could still, thank goodness, generously welcome books into our ives.

I recall once during that time that I searched for a certain novel, reportedly available, within my fifteen minutes. To no avail. So I asked a librarian if she knew the author and if the book was misplaced. She did; the author was a respected, long deceased one not often checked out, anymore. She searched further. Failing to locate the one I wanted, she announced she’d purchase the book–and two more by that author–so that I and others could have access to his work. This was said with a triumphant smile. I was flabberghasted. She was, as she noted, “here to support our patrons and provide great materials whenever I can.” And she did, and she always has done so.

So, here is to libraries and librarians. Here’s to the hours of work put in for us (work we often do not see or think about), and to their patient, knowledgeable and kindly assistance. The countless books and other materials kept track of and then offed to us have given me, for one, more freedom to roam far reaches of mind, heart and soul, to critically consider diverse notions and gather quite useful information. Books give good medicine as well as good direction more often than not.

Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Pexels.com

Wednesday’s Words/Nonfiction: Hair=Signifying Crown of What?

My almost-twenty year old granddaughter sports a mane of ebony black hair though she was born with blond fluff that became a thick honey blonde. (See above, middle: she’s nine, at play) I bit my tongue when she first dyed it–glowing pink. Then blue tips on blond then beachy blond and stawberry blond and finally to blue-black and blacker. It has remained the latter for perhaps four years. I don’t ask about it; I tell her she is lovely– as she is, body and soul. But sometimes I long to see her real hair color again–whatever that is. Will it tend toward her mother’s, her grandmothers’ (I’m at right from last year in a shot for my friend, who gave me that delightful shamrock plant) and great-grandmothers’ (her paternal grandmother, my mom, above left, is about 28) hair color–all wearing a spectrum of auburn to chestnut to walnut brown full-bodied hair? Maybe that will come to be. But it’s her head of hair, not mine, and she’s growing into an adult whose crowning glory means something particular– to her. The style will evolve as she does; who knows where her journey will take her?

I get it, though. One reason I never criticize her dyeing sprees–or in the past, my four daughters’ and a son’s– is that I sure wasn’t immune to hair dye. I once tried a rich black-brown in junior high (now called middle school) and somehow it transformed into a muddy green horror. It even cast its ugliness onto my skin. I didn’t return to school until a stylist corrected the mess. I tearfully begged for my natural color’s retoration. She came close, yet it all was a disappointment. My first spontaneous experiment–and pushing against our cultural norms– met with hideous results.

Back in my earliest teen years I’d suffered with bristly rollers overnight or weird foam ones that left me in ringlets until I brushed hard, patted and plumped. I thus achieved a “bubble bob” cut at earlobes or jawline, or a puffy longer bob if it had somehow grown out some. That style required lacquering in place with many spurts of hairspray. It was the cool thing to do, so middle class WASP; we all looked alike–and dressed in matching skirt and sweater outfits with complementary Capezio flats. I got tired of enduring it all by 15 and found it singularly uninspiring. I was a diehard romantic, a poet and musician, not a sheep. And I loved being outdoors. I suited myself and let things go natural, bangs growing out so they formed a short curtain over my eyes. I was forever being nagged to push them off my brows or chop them off or I’d end up going blind, according to Mom. I left them as they were, the better to glower surreptitiously, and to observe…and hide a bit. But I liked that it was all so moveable, that wind could mess it up and I didn’t care.

Next came a daring change: the Twiggy haircut. Twiggy, a British model from the ’60s, was rail thin with huge eyes darkly outlined and fake-lashed. Her hair was pared down to bare minimum and it was fantastic. Actress Mia farrow had that haircut, too, and I wanted it. loved the bold statement. My classmates by then were wearing straighter, longer or medium length but still coiffed. (The guys slowly became shaggier a la Beatles.) I quite liked the severity of that cut. I saw it as gamine wearability–but it shocked my classmates and many adults who thought it “boyish” and “extreme” at the worst. I believe some guys I dated liked it fine. But I’d slipped into noncomfromity while in the midst of turmoil. It was an act of rebellion, as well as a way to demonstrate my growing interest in creative decision making.

I underwent DIY alterations. I toyed with blond streaks in my twenties, hoping for glamour that in fact was too transient and washed out my lightly sallow skin. Then I tinted it deeper auburn until it grew out. Until late thirties it grew to become shoulder length and beyond. The point was that it hung free, even tangly and true to hippie style. Once, at 33, I was struck by the lack of captivating curls so gave myself a perm. It sprang to life like a mad thing I couldn’t control, yet when I boarded an airplane to go meet my husband on a business trip, I felt like a new woman. He met me and stared at the corona around my face and said nothing. I felt so let down. Perhaps it wasn’t my best look, though once again it was liberating to do it. I recall pulling it back for months to keep it out of my eyes and mouth. Afterall, I had five kids by then, and off and on we lived in countryside. I wasn’t keeping up with fashion despite enjoying, from a distance, its creative aspects.(I often shopped at second hand stores for those fast-growing kiddos–and sometimes myself.) I’d half-forgotten what it was like to put on a pair of high heels and a dress. My weekly uniform was a clean shirt or sweater, jeans and Frye boots in winter; in warmer weather it was shorts, tank top/Tshirt and sandals. Like many mothers who stayed at home.

All that changed at 36 when I got a worthwhile, full time job that I loved and had to wear dresses or at least pants suits. It was 1985. My life was turning a corner and if it was positive it felt risky. I kept my hair chin length and easy but started to color it a bit red. I wanted to be someone else, I suspect, than who I’d become when drinking too much and failing to meet a myriad duties. And being sequestered in each new place my husband’s career set us all down. I was worn thin and thinner by endless housework, stress of life demands and our contentious marriage; and I was glued to my lovely but exasperating kids for many years. I tried to keep writing– children’s stories, poetry, short stories seeming like lifeboats in the midst of unpredictable seas. But it was often impossible and I flailed about. It may not resonate with some, but living unhappily in suburban Detroit did not work for me, anymore. Developing a career was a way out of the corner and it was a good transition. But it was not enough.

Before I embarked on a major change or two, my hair color had slipped into a fiery red as it got shorter. If that wasn’t a foretelling….and, unfortunately, not all for the best. Don’t get me wrong, I like (natural or otherwise) red hair on people just fine. But not for me. It was too flashy; it was an abrasive red. I was restless and mad, at times drinking again to muffle the miseries. I was getting ready to do something drastic even though I loved working and adored my children. Where all of that led me was to a couple bad choices.

I was divorced a second time at 42. But with a move to Oregon and upon making greater changes I began to find my way back to a more authentic self. And to my natural hair. I stopped dying it, rarely cut it much. It breathed, while it was apt to snag twigs, provide a resting place for flower petals and leaves; it shone in piney air and the sunlight of my new (sober, once and for all) and soon curiously improved life. I was on my way to peace.

I always had decent volume of hair if fine in texture. People complimented me; it half-embarrassed me, surprised me as I had increasingly “let it go” as my mother would have chided. It had grown wavier like my parents’ and siblings’ hair. It was a family trait for silvery streaks to adorn temples by age thirty, yet mine remained a stubborn single color for another three decades. I got regularly teased about it by family, as if something in my DNA had gone rogue. One niece had fully white hair before forty; it was ethereal, gorgeous with her alabaster skin. My sister in Portland sported deep waves of glimmering white like our mother. My jazz musician brother near by us had a head covered in silvery hues. I felt, frankly, left out. I wanted–no, needed–to identify with the tribe that my older four siblings and I embodied, especially after our parents died. But I checked in the mirror: same auburn-brown hair that grew by mid-forties to the middle of my back, curving about shoulders and face. It was curious.

I thought by fifty it would happen; it did not until my mid-to-late sixties, shiny strands here and there. But at least I had more healthy hair than ever before. It leased me that on hikes gusting wind lifted and swirled it around so that I felt like a creature at liberty to roam at will. Which I was, I realized. Only once more–after a heart disease diagnosis at 51 after my mother’s death and not working 3 years– I cut it once more. Very short. I felt it had to be gone for awhile. That I had to start over. And I can’t tell you how many people expressed disappointment I had done so. I had no idea my hair had secret admirers. I found it disconcerting, wanting to cover my near-naked head with hats. But it grew, of course, for a decade, then two.

Now I am 71. It is gradually going whiter at last, drier, coarser and wavier, too. But I’m also losing hair. Over the last three years, it’s drifted out and down quite a bit, and I can get alarmed when I note a small nest of it on the shower floor. I saw a dermatologist who said it was inherited hair loss via maternal genes and welcome to the club: 40% of older women have thinning hair. Sometimes even younger ones. And the past two years or so? Stressful doesn’t even cover it, so I doubt I’m the only one shedding more.

When I got home after my appointment I stopped to ponder how my mother aged. I had only known her since she was 40 when I was born; her hair was worn shorter and a gleaming grey. And we all loved her beautiful crown of hair above laughing blue-grey eyes. Few lines on her face even at 90. (My father had so-called good hair, once black gone white; his eyes were bigger, bluer.) She infrequently complained it had become more scarce but it was no tragedy. She got her hairdo “done” every week until the end–that was what women of her generation did if they could possibly manage it. A few times I rolled her soft hair in the bristly rollers, dried it under a hair dryer cap. The look was curlier than she liked but attractive. Nonetheless, she preferred her small beauty shop, and her stylist was one of her best friends. It was a happy social ritual, too. It’s safe to say it was a point of pride to keep her pretty hair in good shape. It was clear my father thought she was wonderful to look at no matter what. Yet pictures of her when younger astonish me–her spirited, intelligent face framed by cascading dark auburn hair. Her personality likely was close to the same.

What does hair mean to us women–and, likely, men? How much does it impact our sense of identity? How much speaks to our specific cultures and chosen subcultures, our socioeconomic groups? I suspect it affects how we feel about ourselves more than we care to admit. Which seems absurd as i write it. It likely moves others to pigeon-hole us, make decisions about who we are despite true identity being very much deeper. I experienced this to a dregee in the 1960s and ’70s. Activist men and women became more androgenous in atttitude and behavior, more experimental with fashion and risk-taking with political activism. After all, the personal was and can yet remain political. How are we set apart or pressured to blend in? How do we keep oursleves unique in a world where there is boring replication and uncannily fast? Our variety is an aspect that makes humans so fascinating–unlike the vast numbers of strikingly similar other creatures we live with on earth!

Let us be who we are– it seems such a reasonable thing to expect…and yet it seems even more a hot topic despite the loosening of strictures regarding appearance. Perhaps the more our world becomes multicultural, the more dividing lines may blur. Some will welcome that; others will not. But when it comes to hair–it is our own, it’s attached to our bodies so we own the right to do with it what we will. It ought to be an enjoyable freedom. We need to play it and adornments, if we chose–it can indicate more of who we are. But I know that for many this choice is not a given. I can only speak for myself, my own lifestyle milieu. I left behind judgments of how I look long ago (my thinness being another focal point of others over decades).

Our interest in hair–not to say obsession–daily supports a huge industry. Not only hair salons but endless products that one can amass, each more nature-made or fancy or miraculous than the last. I have a few but mostly forget to use them, so end up pawning them off on daughters. I haven’t tried aything to stop hair loss. I’m not close to balding and I guess if that happens I may cut it short once more. As an older woman, I choose to not shear it off yet like so many do. I want to feel it sway at my neck, let breezes muss it up. But my more loosely woven grey-to-brown hair doesn’t define me now, if it ever truly did. It’s like a practical accessory; it protects, warms and can be decorative.

I’m settled in with myself, this body. I’m my everyday self–no need to dress up or look fabulous–and so life is lived in such a way that renders what is on top of my head the least of priorities. Still, maybe one day I will blend in a soft lake hue of blue. My daughters have thought I should do that for years. It’s a tiny bit tempting–a last hurrah from a woman who knows her own mind, with hair that seems to have its own life. The aforementioned granddaughter, just back from Hawaii and glowing, would likely give me a “thumbs up”, as well. Meanwhile, there are many more intriguing matters to capture my interest, regardless how this mop of hair looks as I go through the day and night.