| |<--9 1 07 |
Saturday September 14, 2013 11:31 pm comes a time
Sometimes I have to talk myself out of the idea that life is basically over and I'm just waiting to die. I've been to funerals and weddings, done all my best fucking, experienced child births, and created plenty of stuff that makes me happy. But my body and my mind aren't on the up swing anymore, and I find myself observing little edges that used to be sharp getting duller.Tonight my parents were waiting for me after I came down from putting the kids to sleep. They wanted to talk to me. They looked at each other knowingly, and then back to me, and mentioned somewhat vaguely something about memory issues. It's only the second day of their visit, and this is a heavy topic. My dad just turned 70 last week, a friend died of cancer the week before, and another friend is schedule for a double mastectomy. I just finished teaching a stressful graduate course. Do I have to start dealing with this now? Eventually I learned that occasionally he doesn't seem to recall conversations or plans made on previous days. Sometimes when driving around he forgets the name of a street and doesn't remember which way to turn. It didn't sound that bad when he described it, but now as I type it out, it seems a lot worse. I sympathized with him, because I seem to catch myself retreating from life in certain ways that I think are due to my age - thus the first paragraph.
Made linguine puttanesca for dinner. Half onion sauteed in olive oil, some butter, 3 cloves garlic added, 2 diced Roma tomatoes, capers, chili flakes, lemon juice, white wine (Pino Griggio), 2 cuts of feta, added pasta fresh out of the water, added halved cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives on the side (since K doesn't really like them). topped with shaved parmesan. It turned out pretty well. On my walk, around the block, I remembered that I first made Puttanesca for my parents 25 years ago, when my dad would have been younger than I currently am.
Monday November 23, 2009 8:08 am lost
I lost my team and am all alone now. On one hand it's nice to still have a job. On the other hand, I thrive in group situations because I think groups are the most powerful way of accomplishing things. Currently I'm like the staff guru, the smart person to have around, dispensing advice, helping to design experiments. The problem is that I can imagine a lot more than I can accomplish on my own, and I don't see how I can maintain my knowledge if I'm not actually accomplishing things and working closely in a group. I've also gone from leading a team in a given direction, to being surrounded by teams who are focusing on tasks, rather than science.
Sunday March 23, 2008 8:37 pm
Things have gotten better at work. At least temporarily. However, I feel scarred. What do we learn from scars? We learn to be less flexible, less trusting, less engaged, less ambitious. I suppose what I dislike the most, is walking around like nothing ever happened, not being able to talk about how I really feel. On the outside, I try not to show how I feel, but I wonder if we can truly hide any of these things, or if they grow out of us, slowly changing our shape like a cancer. I know I'm quicker to panic, quicker to drama than I used to be, rather than the happy relaxed confidence I'm used to feeling.In general things are going well. I'm working hard on lots of great projects. Getting published. But changes are on the works, we'll see where they lead.
Tuesday October 9, 2007 12:07 am
How is it possible to have just started riding a bike this beautiful, and have it not be a happy event? The answer has something to do with vivisection, something to do with the illusion of control, and something to do with standing up to people with more power than myself. Speak truth to power. I always thought that was good enough. Now I'm not so sure. I think I should make a list of places I could apply for jobs, just to put my mind at ease.
It's been a tough time at work. I appear by all measures to be doing a great job, and yet I'm terribly unhappy. I've fallen into a power trap between somebody who I've been told doesn't like me because I stand up to him, and a benevolent committee putting me through my paces asking me to explain my every move, only to conclude that I'm doing very well. It's like the doctor asking how you feel. When you reply, "I feel fine." He says, "Well let's just cut you open and find out!"
I used to enjoy going to work everyday. Now I accept it with caution. I think things will get better, but I don't have a sense of hope. There are phone calls that I dread receiving, and meetings that I hope will never happen. I've lost faith in those above me, but I continue to look out fiercely for and have faith in those below me. I moved half way across the country to do a job that I love doing. It got me away from the ocean and into what I would call an intellectual desert. It got me out of debt financially, and out of a rat race of traffic, congestion, and high rent. It gave me some peace of mind and the ability to have shiny new things like fast and sexy motorcycles, but it left me in a place with few destinations to ride to.
Saturday September 1, 2007 11:16 am
Tuesday 28 Augst 2007How do you talk to a dying person? I googled a phrase very similar to that yesterday. I was almost embarassed to have to turn to the internet for such advice. But I knew I could find something. I knew someone had taken the time to write down such valuable, painful advice.
My aunt is about 10 years older than me and she's dying of cancer. I tried calling her yesterday. When I tried calling her today I wasn't even sure she'd be alive. She weighs less than a hundred pounds. My dad had told me that she sounds great on the phone. He talks to her every day. I wish I could tell how he felt. Though his sister is dying, he's straightforward and pragmatic, but I know he cares deeply for her.
I've been thinking about this phone call for days. Trying to ponder how to speak to someone who knows that any day they will cease to exist. How do you talk to someone and avoid speaking about the future? How do you speak without getting locked into easy cliches such as "I hope things will get better", "see you later", "talk to you soon", "you should try it sometime", when you know none of those may be true?
I read a little advice and then decided not to over think it. Instead I would simply go home for lunch everyday and make the phone call until I reached her, betting on my ability to wing the conversation. When she picked up the phone and heard my voice, she immediately asked how was the wedding? It caught me by surprise. It was the first thing she said to me. So I did my best to describe it to her. She was just getting out of the shower, and getting ready to go pick up her dad at the hotel.
Having visitors has been tiring. People have been coming to visit. Her husband has been trying to keep busy. She says it's his way of dealing with it. She relies on her faith for strength. Though I'm not religious I support her in her beliefs. I told her that one of my fondest childhood memories involved her taking me to her highschool for a day. I remember her classmates giving me their spelling list and even though I was only in 3rd or 4th grade I could pronounce and spell most of the words. They were all really impressed. I was too. I remember I found it really confidence inspiring that I could impress a bunch of highschool students at such a young age just by knowing some words. She also took me to her art class where they were making candles by pouring wax into molds made of impressions in sand. It was the early 70s and everyone had long hair. I remember thinking the people in the art class were really cool.
I asked her how she felt, was she freaked out, or had reached some kind of acceptance. She said she'd been doing ok, and that she had come to terms with what's happening. I asked her if she's in pain. She said she's on morphine. Things are shutting down. She hopes she can survive the next four days because her brother is coming to visit.
We talked about everyday things. The silences were the hardest. I didn't want the conversation to end. She said she loved me. I told her I loved her. We said good bye.
| |<--9 1 07 |