We did it again at a Rainbow gathering at the Kumbh Mela, the largest Hindu gathering ever held, and the largest religious gathering ever held on earth. It was chaos; dust and noise. We were overwhelmed again, by the futility of 80 million people trying to leave an endless wheel of punishment by washing in a certain river on a certain day. We found out later that one hundred thousand old widows were abandoned by their families there by the river. Slowing their families down, they were just… left. We felt oppressed and tired and we used water on dusty feet again to fight back with a small spark.
I remember that it was something that my friend Christy always did while we traveled. She would talk about overcoming evil with good while she sat cross-legged on her bed in our guesthouse room, making small beautiful things for people that she met. She took verses from the Bible and wrote them on pretty paper with butterflies or flowers, the size to fit in someone's palm. And so we wove our way across India, fighting to break open the sense of defeat that often followed us, Christy's butterflies sown in every town we visited. "Overcome evil with good."
It is something I think of now. Not that things around me are truly evil, but sometimes life can be dull, or wearying, or discouraging. Sometimes I can remember to fight back by sowing something beautiful into hard times. That's what this blog can be about for me. Writing a story to keep from feeling victimized by life. You can look at life in so many ways. It can be "Poor me" or "Rich me." The worst thing in the world is feeling like a victim. What could be worse than feeling like you have no control over your life? I heard recently that only in remembering that our lives are being written into a larger story can we take the mundane things that keep coming, minute by minute.
I want to be the kind of person who invites a lonely person over when I'm feeling lonely rather than waiting for someone to call. Or to be like Christy, sitting cross-legged on a hard bed in one of the most intense places on earth, making beautiful gifts for lonely people.
February 28, 2006
I have a hard time knowing how to answer sometimes, when people ask me how I feel about the surgery that I'm having tomorrow. I don't always know how I feel, it seems all mixed up with what I want to feel and what I should feel and what I feel when I'm well-rested with a full belly compared to 3:00 AM with a rumbling tummy and a crying baby. But my dreams show me things.
I've dreamed of doctors and nurses yelling at me. In one dream they were prepping me for the IV and I told them to wait because I was still pumping milk and then I knocked the bottle over and it was glass and it shattered. The nurse turned to me and said, "It would serve you right if you just died."
I dreamed that I was in a motorcycle accident and I came in crying and tried to tell Chinua. He and Derek were talking and they turned to me and Chinua said, "Why are you always so dramatic?" Derek said "Stop looking for attention."
I dreamed I was driving down a steep hill and even with all my weight on the brake I couldn't slow down.
I dreamed that I lost Kenya in a crowd and I spent the whole night frantically looking for her.
I dreamed that I screamed at Kai. I dreamed that I got mad at my parents and yelled at them for no reason.
I dreamed that we were in our old house at the flat in San Francisco and I went upstairs and our landlord was moving us out without telling us. All our stuff was in boxes and we had nowhere to go.
I dreamed that I fell out of a window with the Leaf Baby and the glass went everywhere and someone caught me by the ankle just as I caught Leaf by the ankle. We stopped right before we hit the pavement.
I guess I am a little scared inside.
March
March 4, 2006
There's bad news and good news.
The bad news is that I look a little like Frankenstein. My friend Amy brought up the fact that in the movie Young Frankenstein the woman who is in love with Frankenstein calls him Zipperneck. This is what I prefer to be called, from now on.
The good news is that I am not dead. You don't even really want to think about dying, actually, going into surgery—it seems morbid and negative, but I cried when I kissed Kenya goodbye because my biggest fear was the idea of my kids not having a mama. Of course the surgery was actually very safe, and Pete the surgeon told me that chances were higher that I'd die on the way to the operation than in the operation, but still. You don't want to think those things, but you do, when your life is in someone's hands. You know, the way it is when someone is carving at your neck with a sharp knife while you're knocked out and helpless under bright lights.
I was really woozy about the IV and it didn't help that the nurse had to try three times before she got it in. My Superstar Husband was trying to distract me by talking about the beads in my hair. "That's a really pretty one, Rae. I've never seen it before. Where'd you get it? Did Jared give it to you? He's really into giving people gifts." I was following slightly but most of me was over with the nurse, totally grossed out by the fact that she was sticking sharp objects into my veins. The anesthesiologist showed up with a five o'clock shadow at 7:00 in the morning and he was one of those guys who has a thick patch of chest hair peeking out over his scrubs. He told me all about the terrible things he was going to do, like give me a breathing tube, after I was asleep. Why tell me? It's not like I'm going to know. But they treated me like a star, wheeling me down to the operating room while different nurses that I know in the hospital from labor and delivery or my pre-op appointments waved at me and wished me luck. And then I slowly lost consciousness.
Regaining consciousness in the operating room was one of the strangest experiences that I've had. I was lying there totally out of it, while people all around me talked about me.
"Oh here she is! She's really sleepy! How about some morphine, do you want some morphine? I'm going to put some special stockings on you, to keep you from getting a blood clot. Oh! Are you very tall? These stockings are so short on her, Betty, do you think that's okay? She must be very tall."
"She is, she's 5'11." (Presumably reading my chart.)
"Yes, she's tall. More morphine? How are you feeling?"
Meanwhile I was fading in and out, and I assume I was making some sort of response to all the questions, but it seemed to come from a place that was very far away.
The day was a haze of sleepiness and throwing up. I faded in and out while nursing, while talking, and in between bouts of narcolepsy managed to throw up everything I ate, including pain medication. It wasn't the most fun I've ever had. I'd even say that I never want to do it again. But I did watch a Project Runway marathon, which was a bonus. Leaf was amazing the whole time. He drank my milk from a bottle obediently while I was in surgery. He lay and kicked his legs in the bassinet that the nurses borrowed from Labor and Delivery, looking like a gigantic six-week-old newborn with a terrifyingly large head. (He's already so much bigger than when he was born!) I threw up in a little yellow tub. Although one time I was nursing Leaf and I told a nurse that I felt really nauseous. She quickly walked out of the room to look for anti-nausea medication for me. It was a little late for anti-nausea medication. I vainly tried to call her back and then was forced to lean over the side of the bed and let it out all over the floor. It was that or on the baby.
Then came nighttime and the Android nurse who lacked emotion entirely. She had no sympathy. She treated me like a drug addict every time I asked her for pain medication.
"What level is your pain?"
"Um, a seven."
"Is it really a seven? Are you crying?"
"Okay, it's a six. Please can I have something before I freak out?"
She gave Chinua a booby-trapped reclining chair to sleep in. It was made in 1951 and snapped shut violently every time he shifted, giving him whiplash and waking the baby up. He ended up sleeping on the floor with his legs in the bathroom and his head by the foot of my bed, since our room was the size of a postage stamp. He snored terribly and I couldn't wake him up. The nurses must have heard something like this:
SNORE.
/> "CHINUA!"
SNORE!
"CHINUA!!!"
SNORE!!!
"CHIN-UUU-AAA!!!"
Finally I inched my pathetic wounded self down to the end of the bed and started smacking him with a pillow to try to get him to stop. Then my IV bag ran out and the machine started beeping. After about a million beeps Android nurse came in and asked, "Is something beeping in here?" She sounded upset and I couldn't help wondering whether she thought I had brought something from home that made terrible beeping noises, just to annoy her. Both Chinua and I had close to the worst nights of our lives. Finally at about 4:30 I was able to hold some pain meds down and I actually slept. After that everything got better.
We left the next day, but not before I nearly passed out while Pete the Surgeon took my stitches out and made some remarks about how I shouldn't play tackle football and take a helmet to the neck. (Thanks for the word picture, Pete.) I'm feeling pretty good. I'm sore and I have to move my whole body instead of swiveling my neck, but thanks to the miracle of pain meds, it's not too bad. We're still waiting to hear back about whether or not it's cancer, but they're mostly sure that it's not. All I can say is it better not be, because they are going to have to drag me kicking and screaming if I have to go back. I can't believe the love and support I have around me right now, though. This winter has been a bit rough, and this is the culmination, but people are so loving. God is so loving.
March 4, 2006
We have decided to stop combing Kenya's hair. The reasons are numerous, but most of all because she will have the prettiest head of dreadlocks that any of us have ever seen. A close runner up reason is because I have spent more time now doing Kenya's hair than I have spent on my own hair in my whole entire life. I just have to ask myself: Is this quality time? The fact that she is often screaming and crying and throwing herself on the ground and if she could cuss she would, suggests not. I know that my blended race daughter is only experiencing what young black girls all around the world experience: super kinky hard to deal with hair, but fortunately in this family we love dreadlocks. I have them, Chinua has them, and now Kenya will have them.
Her hair is perfect for dreadies. I will probably miss the little braids and twists and all that, but adding a newborn to the mix has shifted me over to the locked up side. Elena pointed out that I will be saving a ton of time by letting her hair dread up. It's true that I spend probably half an hour on it every day. Time that I will now spend picking up toys. Those feet stabbing dinosaurs are a big pet peeve.
The other big piece of news around here (other than the fact that I really don't like this hole in my neck and can't wait for it to heal) is that yesterday my Superstar Husband bought his airplane ticket for Turkey! A member of this family is going on a journey. A long and far away journey. He'll be gone for three weeks in April and he almost reconsidered when it hit him that the kids will change while he's gone. Especially the little Leaf baby.
We'll miss him, but I'm so glad that it's settled that he's going. He needs it, you know? He's headed for a peace gathering, and it's going to be a raging adventure.
March 6, 2006
Today I slipped into feeling a little sorry for myself. A little like I'm going to die because this wound in my neck hurts and it itches like crocodile pants and my daughter just punched me right smack in the middle of it. Everywhere I went (because I stupidly went into public places today) I was sure that people were staring at me and thinking that I was a psycho drug addict. Did you see 28 days and the guy who gave himself a tracheotomy? I thought that they were assuming that I was like that guy. I became very suspicious. I thought everyone felt sorry for me. I wore this scarf around my neck so that people wouldn't have to look at my unpleasant two inch gash, but it bothered me, so I kept taking it off, and then putting it back on because I felt people looking and plotting about how to get me back into the mental ward.
Why didn't you just stay home? you may be wondering. And that would be a good question. I guess I never know when enough is enough. I thought that all I had to worry about was my energy level, which actually hasn't been all that bad. I didn't realize that after surgery I would feel so vulnerable, that I would feel like hiding. I feel opened up and exposed. The cool thing is, I've realized once again that the community I live with feels like a family. Because I'm not afraid to be around them. It's funny, we went out together today to a church we don't usually go to and after had a very California style Mexican potluck. We hung out and small-talked with the people around us. But we also huddled together a bit, kind of like penguins. I think we just like each other's company. That's what being a family is like.
It's not that we're all that much alike. I think it's just the fact that when you work and toil away and live with people you begin to wear different grooves into each other until you're a bit like a big puzzle. There are so many friends that I have like this, all around the world, people I've lived with and worked with. We've worn grooves into each other. We fit together in ways that feel empty when we're apart. It's sad. I miss those other friends, the ones I'm far away from now.
But it's good to know that there are a lot of people out there that I wouldn't mind feeling ugly around. More than a few people have actually seen me break down and freak out. Some people are here with me, when I'm so close to breaking down right now, when the stress of having a new baby and waiting for important test results are getting to me. When I can't move my head properly and everything hurts and it's driving me crazy.
I remember about seven years ago I heard someone say that life is made up of sitting and standing. Maybe most of the time you are standing, but sometimes you just have to sit down for a while. And having close friends and a strong community is about the seamlessness that happens when other people can stand up for you while you're sitting. Everyone has their times when they are unable to stand. It's so beautiful to have friends who will be standing around you, especially when you are just sitting there in the dirt, watching ants and eating grass, waiting for your knees to stop shaking.
March 12, 2006
Not cancer. NOT CANCER.
Pete the surgeon walked into the room the other day and found five of us waiting. The littlest could barely hold up his head. "I've got good news," he said. It's a good thing to hear first, unless of course he meant, "I've got good news- we're going to be seeing a lot of each other." Or, "I've got good news- more money for me."
But he said, "I've got good news, it's a benign follicular adenoma." And we all, except the youngest three, breathed a sigh of relief. No more surgery, no radioactive iodine, no Synthroid, no six weeks of hell.
Thyroid cancer is supposed to be one of the easiest to treat. But you still have to drink (!) radioactive iodine, which makes you radioactive. For 24 hours you have to sit in your hospital room and only the radiation specialists can come near you in their special suits and so you have 24 hours of solitude, except you can't bring your laptop because it will become radioactive and you'll have to throw it away. So that sounds pretty much like misery to me. Then for ten days you can't be with your kids. Including your newborn.
I'm very, VERY glad that I don't have to go through all of that. I'm full of thanks and praise that I will be able to keep nursing Leaf, and that I won't be crying every day that I can't see my kids. I'm so glad that now I can let all of the worry go and just recuperate, wait for my neck to heal, feel better and better as my baby gets older and hopefully starts sleeping a little bit longer at night.
Here's a confession, though: I'm just the teensiest bit disappointed that I won't be able to write about being radioactive.
That is so sick. What is wrong with me?
In other news, we've been having freak snowstorms for the last couple of days. I honestly didn't know that it even could snow here. The weather has changed its mind every few minutes. One second it's raining, then hailing, then these big soft snowflakes are drifting down, and suddenly it's hard rain again.
Good weather for community rounds of Killer Bunn
ies: the card game that makes us all mad at each other.
*
Leaf has crossed the threshold into Adorable Baby country. He smiles and laughs and lies on his back cooing. More than either of the other kids when they were his age, he seems to really want to talk to me. His little face is so intent, as though if he just thought hard enough, he could make some real words come out. He loves the strangest things: A dark sock hanging off the edge of the white metal posts on the bunk-bed gets half an hour of cooing and smiling out of him. We call the lamps his "friends" because he loves to talk to them and listen as they talk back to him. "Who are you talking to, Leaf?" we say. "Are you talking to your friends again?"
Life is good. My neck is healing and I can move it again, I don't have cancer and my family is amazing. Our house will be done by the end of the month and we'll have more space. The fact that it's snowing can't change the fact that it's the middle of March and Spring has to come sooner or later. So... why do I feel so depressed?
March 25, 2006
Now that Kid A has flown full swing into make-believe, life is always interesting. And frustrating sometimes, too. We may be eating dinner in a perfectly normal fashion (which for us these days is with up to ten other people on couches in the Big House) and suddenly it takes a turn.
Trees Tall as Mountains (The Journey Mama Writings: Book 1) Page 7