Archive for October, 2007

Mirror, mirror…

I’ve spent a lot of time in front of mirrors. Too much time. As a kid I would make faces, practice impressions, and make believe I was on TV. My sister and I sometimes played the “News Game,” whereby we would sit on my parents’ bed, facing their big dresser mirror, and pretend to be television news anchors. We’d begin by delivering the news straight-faced – “The weather will be sunny today; the Yankees beat the Red Sox 4-3 in extra innings” etc. Then, without warning, one of us would start acting like a maniac – screeching, laughing, making silly faces, bouncing around the bed – until the two of us burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

Once puberty hit, I’d spend interminable stretches in front of the bathroom mirror, picking at zits and fooling with my hair. Even now my family makes fun of me for spending so much time staring at myself. My mother has often wondered aloud whether I’m afraid I might shrivel up and disappear if I lose sight of my own reflection.

Our host family in Mexico doesn’t have a mirror in their bathroom, so I didn’t shave at all during those difficult first days on the Pueblo. My beard grew in wild and itched like crazy. I was curious what it looked like, what I looked like, and as the days rolled by I wasn’t entirely sure I’d even recognize my reflection. It had a curiously unsettling effect on me, not being able to check in with myself each trip to the bathroom, just to give myself the old “thumbs up” or flash myself a goofy smile. Perhaps my Mom is right about me being afraid to lose myself. It’s true I used to have recurrent nightmares as a child, wherein my father’s face would suddenly change form in mid conversation. The change would be ever so slight, but enough that my Dad didn’t quite look like my Dad. This terrified me. A part of me seems to need reassurance that everything is as it should be, as I need it to be. Part of me needs to know I’m still me.

Of course, when you look at something everyday, it’s harder to notice the inevitable changes that come with the passage of time. My nephews grow up so quickly between visits, and old friends seem to age in unnatural quantum leaps. Now that I’m back in the cradle of civilization – i.e. Metuchen, NJ, U.S.A. – I’m once again confronted by my own reflection several times a day. And I do look different. Older. A bit more worn down. In need of a haircut, certainly. You’d think one’s reflection would be objective, showing the cold, hard facts, but I don’t think so. For me, the mirror has been a canvas upon which I cast my hopes and fears, creating a sense of illusion like any good stage magician. It’s a seductive and convincing illusion, but as with stage magic, at bottom I know it’s not real.

I’m discovering how mindfulness meditation can be a far more accurate and useful mirror, a perfect gauge of my state of mind and body. I wanted to say “soul” a moment ago, but something got in the way. I think it was that punk I see everyday in the mirror.

The harvest

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Much has happened over the course of the last week or so. Circumstances have changed rather significantly. Severe weather and lack of sleep made the journey from Mexico to the United States seem as much psychological as it was geographical. A dreamy haze clouded my thoughts and perceptions as I rode in cars, taxis, buses and airplanes, at turns sitting next to smokers, snorers, pants-poopers and pill-poppers. Changes came upon me suddenly. After thirteen hours of agonizing discomfort getting to Mexico City, I found myself in a fancy hotel lying in a bathtub full of hot water, splashing around and laughing. Mary Alice and I didn’t even take a nap, despite being up for three days straight. We zipped around on the wireless internet, ate big, delicious meals, and snuggled up to bad movies on cable. It was heavenly. Next thing I know my heart’s breaking as Mary Alice tearfully waves goodbye, me rolling away in a wheelchair toward the airport security checkpoint. Then, what do you know – I’m in New Jersey. And let me tell you, Newark never looked so beautiful.

I saw the doctor right off the bat, and he didn’t waste time getting to the bad news: “The ACL is out.” Which means the middle third of my patellar tendon must be “harvested,” along with bone fragments on either end of it. This will be used as the graft that will take the place of the torn ligament. A guided drill will then bore holes in both the tibia and femur so that the graft can be threaded through and screwed into place. No hay problema!

I don’t much like the idea of being “harvested,” even if it is for my own benefit, but it’s either my patellar tendon or my hamstring tendon, unless I want them to harvest tissue from a cadaver. I like the idea of having some random dead guy’s body part in me even less than I like the idea of being harvested. Besides, I’ve been through the whole thing before with the right knee, although that was before Google, so I didn’t know so much about the harvesting and drilling. I just knew I wanted to play sports again, and despite the pain and hardship, I was able to get another seventeen active years in before crippling myself again.

The doc also said he couldn’t do the surgery until I got some range of motion back in my knee. Five weeks in the immobilizer can do a number on you. He also told me to lose the crutches as soon as possible, which turned out to be a matter of hours. Yesterday morning, I woke from a dream in which I was gimping along okay with no crutches or brace, so just for giggles I stepped out of bed and gave it a shot. It’s not graceful, but by golly I’m back on two legs.

Things are happening so fast and furious, my head feels like it’s literally spinning. At times during my meditation this morning I felt as if I was going to fall off the bed. And my focus has been terrible, my thoughts bouncing around my skull like popcorn kernels. After only a few days exposure to TV, the internet, and various magazines, I can actually sense the clutter re-accumulating in my mind. The addictive grasping and clutching for stimulation and distraction has already reasserted itself full force, as if all it needed was the tiniest bit of attention to fully reactivate and crowd out all but the faintest trace of the still small voice within. It’s important I take measures right away to catch my breath, to reestablish some equanimity and clarity. I may already be losing touch, forgetting, falling back into the old ruts, but I still have hold of the thread. I know what to do. I have no excuses.

Fly Disneyland

The following is the last thing I wrote before leaving Mexico. I intended to post it before the long journey home, but severe weather kept me walled up for my last few days on the Pueblo. Reading it now, it seems insane and out of context, as I sit here in New Jersey preparing for knee surgery. Part of me wants to bury Fly Disneyland. Fly Disneyland is weird. People are actually reading this blog now. Family members have printed entries out and passed them around to friends. Everybody loves the travelogue stuff, but lately things have been getting crazy. Shit, maybe I’ve been getting a little crazy. Sitting in a chair with your leg propped up for five weeks can do that to a guy.

The bottom line is this: Whenever I censor myself or try to write in a particular way to impress this person or that person, I stop writing. And I don’t want to stop writing.

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A strange thing happened today, something I can’t for the life of me explain. Actually, it’s more like a non-happening, but whatever – the thing is this: I did not see a single fly today. Not a one. As usual, I never left the room all day, not for a second. And a good chunk of everyday is spent engaged in ruthless combat against the entire insect kingdom (and the arachnids, and anything else that finds its way into my room). The walls are painted with spider guts, the floors littered with carcasses: spiders, crickets, cockroaches, assorted beetles, and flies – especially flies. Maybe the little fuckers finally got the message. Fuck with me and die! Maybe I killed every last one of them. Who knows?

Something strange also occurred to me early this morning, while I was in and out of a dream. I realized there’s a psychological equalizer in my head that limits the volume of my thoughts. I know this sounds crazy, but try it, try to remember the loudest scream you ever heard. Is it actually loud in your mind’s ear? Can you mentally conjure up a sound so loud that it hurts? I can’t do it. I mean, I can imagine the sound of a scream all right, but it’s like hearing a scream on television, with the volume set at a comfortable level. Whispers, screams, casual conversations – they all come to mind at the same volume level. I can’t imagine a sound so quiet I have to strain to hear it, and I can’t imagine a sound so loud that it hurts my ears. And I can’t think of a word that’s the audio equivalent of “imagine.” Crazy shit.

Come to think of it, I can’t mentally produce a memory of pain so intense it actually hurts to recall it. Or a light so bright it burns my eyes to picture it. Nope, can’t do it. Perhaps this applies to all the senses. Maybe there’s a cure for schizophrenia in all this… “Tell me Mr. Adams, do the voices ever change in volume? Ask Satan to scream as loud as he can, and if it doesn’t hurt your ears, you can disregard him as unreal.”

Seven years ago, on a day not unlike today, I woke to the chirping of birds and the fiery glow of sunlight saturating the green of the back yard. I opened the window to the back bathroom to take in a breath of fresh morning air and there he was–that fat, juicy jet-plane of a housefly that I had cruelly confined between the windows the day before. Cruelty is usually not my cup of tea, but that particular day I was capable of anything. After a week and a half of on and off rain, the day had been a total wash from start to finish. I woke up from a despairing dream that left a knot in my back the size of a tennis ball. Everything I did felt as if it were a futile escape from the molten core of that knot. And everything was. Anyway, as I was vainly trying to shit out my sorrow in the back bathroom, a fly – one of those big fatties as I said – kept dive-bombing me and buzzing about my head. After taking a few swipes at him with a dirty rag, he finally landed on the window screen and – without hesitation – I slammed him into his prison cell. After a minute or so of helpless buzzing around he sat motionless, seemingly watching the downpour and (so I imagined) contemplating the heinousness of the wrongdoing he had perpetrated against me. All day long, when I came in to take a leak or brush my teeth, I stopped to check in on my little POW, each time feeling a little more guilty, but not enough to grant clemency. Well the following morning, with the sun shining and the birds chirping and all, I finally had a mind to set things right, but when I flung open the window, my little buddy didn’t so much as stretch his wings. I pursed my lips and let out a gust of breath as a wake up call, but the little fat fly just slid across the windowsill like a tree branch over a frozen lake. I waited too long. It was too late.

A few months later I broke my leg during a particularly boisterous (and awesome) jam session in the band room. I was singing and stomping and spinning and jumping off amplifiers. Somehow, I stomped so hard I cracked the plateau of my tibia. Then, one morning as I hobbled along in that back bathroom, just before I reached the toilet, one of my crutches went right through the linoleum, through the rotten wood underneath, and straight down to the ground underneath the house. I put a board over the hole and left it at that, knowing from past experience the futility of notifying the landlord. Two years after that, a strange thing occurred to me as I sat on the toilet in that same bathroom, resting my right foot on the edge of the board and staring at the box of Arm and Hammer Fabricare Detergent that was sitting on the washing machine across from me. The washing machine that was full of piss and shit when we moved in. Anyway, the box said “Deep Cleaning.” That started the following train of thought: “Deep cleaning… That’s what Arm and Hammer Fabricare Detergent is. It’s what it does. An overused word – deep that is, while its inverse, peed, well, you hardly ever see that in print. ‘Took a leak’ you might see every once in a while, but not so much ‘peed.’”

Then I had a little conversation with myself, as follows: “Have you ever been taking a shower somewhere, like in a hotel or something, and suddenly realized that you’re in one of the few places where it would be just fine if you pissed all over yourself. You know, just to have the experience. You can aim it right at your feet or kneecap and just flat out urinate on yourself. It’s kind of exhilarating, isn’t it, like when you’re out in the woods and you can just let it go without aiming it anywhere – the old ‘hands-free pee.’”

Then I recalled how John and I had often discussed how liberating it might be to set aside a special night and, intestines willing, crap our respective pants. Just poop ourselves, right there in our Levis, and then ponder it a while, letting the experience sink in, feeling the warmth, the texture, the shame of it all maybe too. We actually talked about this, about sitting together in the living room and pooping our pants, as if it would be some kind of sacred bonding experience, like doing shrooms out in woods or becoming blood brothers.

A year after this inner monologue, we went to the Cat’s Cradle to see the rock band Guided by Voices. After the show, the guys in the band turned up at our house for an “after hours” party. Everybody but the main guy, the singer, Bob Pollard. I was rocking out a version of The Who’s “I Can’t Explain” in the band room. I knew that Bob Pollard was a big Who fan and I was hoping he might stumble in and jam with me. When he didn’t show, I went to the back bathroom to take a leak and, pushing open the door, was taken aback to discover the other Guided by Voices guys hanging out in there with some girls, smoking cigarettes and preparing a line of coke on the back of a CD case. Just as I was about to back out the door, something extraordinary happened. I hope I remember this right, because the details are very, very important. I’m pretty sure it went down like this:

I noticed a fly buzzing around the room, a big, fat, juicy fly. “It couldn’t be” I thought, and with that thought came a wave of excitement so powerful, I pooped my pants right there on the spot – we’re talking The Hershey Squirts – right in front the girls and the guys from Guided by Voices and the line of coke and the half empty bottles of beer. In a panic, I grabbed for the box of deep-cleaning Arm and Hammer Fabricare Detergent and without stopping to think things through I dumped a whole lot of the white powder down the back of my pants. With that, everyone began to laugh hysterically, everyone except John, who was by this time standing outside the door. He was weeping like a war widow. “You did it without me!” he wailed, and before I could explain myself, he began to strain, red-faced and eyes bulging, holding his breath until at long last letting out a groan that sounded like a grizzly caught in a bear trap. Everyone fell dead silent. All eyes were locked onto John, as his face slowly began to twist from a grimace to wry smile. The room filled with the odor of a freshly pinched loaf. Before anyone could say a word, John raced toward me, arms outstretched, and gave me a big bear hug. Then we started spinning each other around the room like lovers in a field of daisies. The drummer from Guided by Voices raised his beer as if to toast, but in doing so, accidentally knocked over the box of Arm and Hammer Fabricare, spilling the remainder of its contents onto the line of coke. With this, one of the girls started screaming, and by then the smell was so bad in the room that the bass player for Guided by Voices puked, in projectile fashion, against the side of the washing machine. This triggered a chain reaction whereby we all began vomiting all over the floor and each other, all the while the one girl screaming like a banshee. In the midst of the commotion, I slipped on some vomit and fell back onto the floor, knocking the board off the crutch hole as I reached my hand back to catch myself. To my utter shock, a human head suddenly popped up through the hole in the floor. It was Bob Pollard, a big smile on his face. “Did I hear I Can’t Explain? I love that song.”

After that, the details get a little fuzzy. We may or may not have played a few hands of poker, and I think someone spilled some beer on my left shoe, soaking the lace all the way up to the knot. Maybe it was the right shoe, I don’t know. But the last thing I recall is looking high up on the wall and seeing that fat, juicy fly. He seemed to be waiting patiently for the place to clear out so he could wallow about in the muck and mire. It must have looked to him like Fly Disneyland.

The tube

In Spanish the word esperar means both “to wait” and “to hope.” Brings to mind a young woman sitting by the window, waiting for a word about her husband, hoping he’ll return from the war alive and in one piece. Or maybe you’re picturing a man lying motionless in an MRI tube, wondering when his tormentors will at last allow him to scratch the twenty-seven mosquito bites on his legs.

It’s been four weeks now since my knee gave out on the soccer field, four weeks of waiting and hoping, hoping and waiting. Although I knew before I hit the ground that I would need surgery, it’s taken four weeks of hoop jumping to procure the requisite slip of paper that makes it official. You see, they have a thing around here called “Mexican time,” which basically means that -if you’re an American anyway – you will feel like you spend most of your time waiting. This, of course, can be a good thing – a growth opportunity, if you will – for us hurried, stressed-out clock-jockeys, but it’s easy to lose sight of that when your leg is atrophying into a toneless slab of liverwurst right before your eyes. Whatever the case, around here you will simply have to wait, and that is that. Best to learn how to wait, if you want to hold on to your sanity. Lose touch with the hope and you’re toast.

When we arrived at the MRI facility, the lab techs told me to take off all my clothes. “Even the underwear?” Si. Wrapped in a thin gown, they taped my leg in place, stepped out of the room, and eased me into the MRI tube by some remote switch. When I was in up to my nose, a wave a panic rose up in my gut, accompanied by thoughts of being mistakenly shoved into a morgue vault and then buried alive.

Curiously, they left me without a word of instruction (not even “don’t move”) and without a clue as to how long I’d be in there. Fortunately, I had been through this twice before, back in the States, so I knew to stay completely motionless, keep my eyes closed and go to a happy place. Last time, it took about forty minutes, perfect for a long meditation session, so I pictured myself lying in bed and began following my breath as it came in and went out.

Feel the belly rise, feel the belly fall. Feel the belly ri -”Man it’s cold in here. Don’t they realize I’m naked under this gown? The AC is blowing right up my skirt and my boys are getting a little chilly down there. Oh yeah…” Feel the belly rise, feel the belly fall. Feel the be - “That ch ch ch noise sounds like a train chugging along, doesn’t it?”

Suddenly I’m living back in Little House on the Prairie times. I’m seventeen or so, decked out in suspenders and a hat just like Pa Ingles. I’m tired of life on the Prairie and want a fresh start, so I hop aboard an empty boxcar and head off to wherever. Leaning back on a bail of hay, watching the countryside rush by through the half open door, I’m abruptly catapulted back into the MRI tube as it kicks on with a deafening roar, making a pulsating sound, like a distress signal. “Goddamn, that’s loud! Sounds like a military distress signal, a warning that we’re under enemy fire.” And before I can catch the next breath, we are under enemy fire – me and the other soldiers. Incoming! Incoming! Everyone man your positions! The ch ch ch sound has become the oxygen flow into my tiny little quarters deep within the hull of a World War Two submarine, where I need to wait motionless for my next set of orders. One false move and the Germans will blow us out of the water. I lie in wait, spider-like, ready to pounce into action at the slightest shift in vibration. The MRI machine kicks off. “Where the hell was I? Oh yeah, shit…” Feel the belly rise, feel the belly fall. Feel the belly rise…

A few cycles later, the machine kicks back on. It makes a new noise this time – still deafening and skull shaking, but now somewhat more hypnotic. I start to hear words in it. WAL-rus, WAL-rus, WAL-rus… The words keep morphing into other words: RAW-fish, RAW-fish… FRIS-co, FRIS-co… COLD-dish… DIS-co… GOLD-disc… SHOW-us, ASS-hole… GO-to work… GIDDEE-up…

Suddenly I’m back in Prairie times, galloping away on my horse. I can hear the train pulling away in the distance. I come upon an old house on the outskirts of town. There’s a girl, a beautiful girl, living all alone. We hit it off, and she takes me in. One thing leads to another. Sex. Love. I eventually find out why she lives alone. Syphilis. The whole town considers her a harlot. I don’t care. I still love her. I’ll take her away, I say, where we can start over. Next thing, we’re on the horse, galloping away, her arms around my waste, the train chugging along beside us. Time passes. A new town. Cured of syphilis. She starts to flirt with other men. Soon she’s sleeping around. Harlot. Just as my heart’s breaking, the MRI machine cuts off.

“Whoa. Guess I drifted off there. Shit, how long have I been in this tube, anyway? Let’s see… Each cycle lasts at least ten minutes, and I’ve been through at least six or seven cycles. Eight maybe. Must be at least an hour by now. Almost done, I’m sure.” Feel the belly rise…

More cycles. They shift my position in the tube, using the remote switch, once, twice, three times. Each time, I think I’m about to be set free. The sense of restlessness is getting unbearable. “Fuck my breath.” Now I’m just waiting and hoping. Hoping each cycle will be the last. Waiting for the techs to pull me out of this wretched tube. “Maybe they left for the day, went home and forgot about me. An hour is one thing, but there are limits to how long a human can remain perfectly still. Fuck! Another round. You gotta be kidding me.” I hear words again in the deafening pulse. “WHEN-WILL-THIS-FU-CKING-SHIT-END-YOU-STU-PID-MO-THER-FU-CKERS-YOU-BET-TER-LET-ME-OUT-OF-THIS-FU-CKING-TUBE-OR-I-WILL-KILL-YOU-YOU-SAD-IS-TIC-BAS-TARDS…” It eventually morphs into a steady KILL-KILL-KILL-KILL-KILL…

I try praying. I try going back to my breath. At this point, I can no longer feel anything from the waist down. My hands are still folded and resting on my chest, I think. I can’t feel them either. They could just as easily be down at my sides or wrapped around my frozen package. I keep thinking: “There are limits, there are limits…”

At some point just shy of a freak-out, they pulled me out of the tube. I asked my wife how long I had been in there. “Two hours” she said. I guess I didn’t know my limits after all. They must have been working with a dial-up connection and a Commodore 64. No matter. The important thing was that I was no longer in the tube. “Whether I have syphilis or the Germans invade or the sun goes out – none of that matters, so long as I’m out of the fucking tube. I’m out of the tube!”

We returned the next day for the results, which confirmed a badly damaged meniscus and probable ligament tears. We took a taxi back to the bus station, where we had to wait ninety minutes or so for the next bus to Santiago. By this time, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and my knee was badly swollen and inflamed from all the bouncing around on crutches and buses. I was just about to launch into my usual litany of complaints, when we noticed several men in wheelchairs roll through the gates. My wife cleared her throat telepathically, urging me to attention. A kid, about seventeen, rolled past us, glanced down at my leg, and then made eye contact with me for what must have been a solid second. For all I know he was thinking: “Now there’s something you don’t see everyday – a white guy on crutches!” Whatever happened on his end, his eyes hit me like a pair of cannon balls, knocking me back in my seat, leaving a giant crater in my chest.

Now, it wasn’t one of those “It could be worse” or “There’s always someone worse off than you” kind of moments. That makes it sound lame. Or maybe it was that sort of thing, I don’t know, but I always hate it when someone responds like that to a good tale of woe. Of course it could be worse! And yes, it could be raining, too! Acid rain! “Some people are born without arms and legs”, my friend Doug was fond of saying, usually after having just suffered some sort of defeat or humiliation. But this kid, the look he gave me, he wasn’t feeling sorry for himself at all. He looked happy, hopeful even. That’s it, I think. That’s why I felt so pierced by his gaze. He caught me with my pants down and my shirt up over my eyes, hopeless, killing time, being killed by time. I was just waiting for a bus, a bus that would take me to another bus, then another taxi, then more taxis, then airplanes and operating tables. Then what, the hearse? I had completely lost touch with the driving force behind it all, namely the hope that I will be able to walk again and return to an active life. For me, this is a solid, realistic hope – one founded on good fortune and privileged access to advanced healthcare. It’s the kind of thing that should not be taken for granted, that’s for sure.

The folks here on the Pueblo don’t seem to get why I’m going through all this rigmarole: doctors, MRIs, travel, surgery. Why not just go to the local Huesero (traditional healer) and have him straighten your leg out for a few pesos? That’s because, around here, it would never occur to someone to have knee surgery. It’s not an option. No one can afford it. You heal up, and if your knee locks or pops out of place once in a while, so what? At least you can walk, right? Maybe that’s what the kid in the wheel chair was thinking. Maybe it was one of those “gratitude moments,” nothing more, nothing less.

Hey, whatever man, as long as I’m out of the tube.

Checkmate

Right now I’m thinking it would be a miracle if I can get this knee taken care of before Christmas. It took days to figure out where the nearest MRI facility is located. You’d think the doc, given his area of expertise and the fact that he’s the referring physician, would’ve had an address or phone number for us, but no. “I think there’s a place in Veracruz, in a building across from this other building…” The next day, the phone cuts out while I’m talking to my insurance rep. No more minutes left. Can’t get to the internet place or it’s closed, etc. Finally waded through the mess and got an appointment for next Friday. Then another set of hoops to get tangled up in, hopefully ending in me lying on an operating table somewhere in the United States sometime in the next month or so. “No te preocupes, Bug.” Jesus is always telling me. “Don’t worry. Every problem has a solution.”

A great guy, that Jesus. As is my father-in-law, who happens to be a doctor, and has been helping me out in countless ways: giving me medical advice and reassurance; making phone calls to the insurance company; checking my email; recommending surgeons, offering me a place to stay and recover in the US; helping with expenses. A true saint, he’s been; a saving grace. Should I ever be a position to offer him a helping hand, I will consider it a privilege.

The long periods between medical interventions mean, of course, more days and weeks sitting around in the room immobilized. Fortunately, I was born without the gene that makes one prone to boredom, and I have always enjoyed solitary pursuits. I discovered the chess game on my computer the other day. It took me a few games, incrementally increasing the computer’s level of stupidity, to taste victory. I doubt I’ll play much more, though, as it ceases to feel like play if I have to think for more than ten seconds before making a move.

I was never into chess, as I never played a match without it feeling like a personal evaluation of sorts, as if my opponent and I were comparing SAT scores or dick sizes. My college buddies and I set up a tournament once, and it was more stressful than final exams week. My friend Josh and I made it through to the finals where, if memory serves, I prevailed after an agonizingly tense battle. We sweated and strained for hours it seemed, hoping the other would make the critical mistake, which Josh finally did. The feeling of having superior intelligence did not materialize as expected. On the contrary, I felt rather like a shallow prick for wanting to win so badly. And as the blood slowly descended from the confines of my skull, I felt sure I’d never play chess again as long as I lived.

Another great guy, that Josh, always a big smile painted on his face, and a robust, jocular disposition that kept his belly jiggling. I remember when he lost that belly, deciding one day out of the blue to dedicate himself to jogging. I was in the process of rehabbing from major knee surgery (again with the knees) and happy to have a running partner. We ran grooves into the pavement and nature trails all across campus. After two months, none of Josh’s clothes fit him.

A year or so later, in order to look lean and mean for the big, college-ending trip to Cancun (again with the Mexico), we stepped up the jogging routine again. Josh also convinced me it would be a good idea to hit the tanning salon, in order to get a “base tan” to protect our lily-white hides from the harsh tropical sun. We returned from our first session looking like a couple of boiled lobsters. A few hours later as I was readying myself for bed, I began to itch a little. Within another hour, I was scratching myself like a flea-ridden chimpanzee, every inch of my body screaming for relief. I ran upstairs to check on Josh, finding him with his shirt off, scratching his back with a towel. He let out a big laugh, then said “It feels better if you take a shower”, so I ran back downstairs and ran the water over me till it was ice cold. Not two minutes after drying off, the itching returned with a vengeance. It was no longer a laughing matter, it seemed to me. I had to be at work the next morning, 7:30am sharp. It was already approaching midnight, and I surely wouldn’t be able to sleep standing up in the shower.

It finally hit upon us to run to the 24-hour super-center down the street. We frantically searched through the rows of boxes and bottles in the pharmacy aisle, ripping open boxes right then and there, pulling up our shirts and spraying each other’s backs with every anti-itch remedy we could get our hands on. We were lucky not to be thrown out of the place, such a spectacle we were making of ourselves. Grabbing several bottles of the stuff that seemed to work best, we raced back home and proceeded to empty the contents within an hour or two. Relief lasted a few seconds at a time, at best. Noticing that running seemed to bring some relief, and not knowing what else to do, we strapped on our running shoes and jogged all over town, for what must have been a couple of hours. It had to be about 4am when we finally exhausted ourselves and headed home to take long, cold showers.

Soon the sun was up, and I needed to call in to work. I had a thing for never calling in sick. I don’t think I missed a single day of work in my life up to that point. I decided to tell the plain truth. To my complete surprise, my supervisor was very understanding. In fact, she had experienced the same thing once – “UV rash” she called it. I don’t know when the itching stopped, but eventually we passed out and woke up to long awaited, sweet relief. Needless to say, we cancelled our next tanning appointment.

In Cancun, sitting around the table at a restaurant one evening, out of the clear sky I suggested to my friends that we play a little game. When your turn came, you had to come up with a synonym for the word “fuck.” Any phrase or euphemism would due, from “shag” to “hide the salami”, but the first person to either get stumped or offer up a repeat had to swim naked across the hotel swimming pool when we got back. I assumed one of the ladies would be first to get flustered, but after a long while, having exhausted nearly every fuck word ever uttered, in multiple languages, Josh slipped up, forgetting someone else had already said “bang.” I still have the photograph of Josh climbing out of the pool, his lily-white ass gleaming, his head cocked as it dawned on him we had taken his towel and clothes.

Later that night, I began a vomiting spree that lasted three days. The meal I enjoyed during the “fuck game” came up in barely digested chunks. At one point, I pulled a piece of chicken out of my nose the size of a McNugget. At this, none of us could contain our amusement. But I eventually got so sick I began to fear death. I ended up spending a considerable portion of my vacation money to get medical attention. I was given injections of unknown substances and told I may have ingested some virus while snorkeling, or else was subject to Montezuma’s Revenge. In any event, I spent the rest of my vacation in bed, while my friends partied and parasailed and did their best to look bummed-out when they returned to see me curled up in the fetal position.

And so I find myself here again, whiling away my days in bed, watching the sun rise and set over Montezuma’s Empire, wondering when he’s going to call it even. He’s got me in a corner, setting me up for the checkmate. Down, but not out, I make my move, careful not to lift my hand from the ivory until the last possible moment, when just about to let go, lips pursed in an expression of subdued resignation, I suddenly, without a breath of warning, squeal like a pig being raped with a turkey-baster. I flip the board over wildly, scattering the pieces everywhere, grab my crutches and gallop for the door. Every problem has a solution.

Waiting for the miracle…

Finished Tropic of Cancer today and felt sad about it. Sipping cold Nescafé in the mornings, following Miller through the streets of Paris – this has been the highlight of my day, every day, for the past couple of weeks. Miller is a kindred spirit, no doubt about it, and it’s almost felt to me as if he’s been at my bedside, regaling me with his reflections and reminiscences, comforting me in a grandfatherly way through a trying time. That’s it right there, I think – his words truly comforted me, and comfort has been hard to come by lately.

I discovered an interesting synchronicity about a hundred pages into the book. Miller goes on at length about peoples’ tendency to wait – all their lives perhaps – for some extrinsic turn of events, for a surge of power emanating from outside themselves, to usher in a time of redemption and transformation in their lives. “Man looks for the miracle” is how he puts it, a phrase which immediately brought to mind the title of my latest album, “Waiting for the miracle,” which I finished recording and posted on the website a few weeks before leaving for Mexico.

As it is with my creative process in general, music and lyrics typically come to me in a flash of inspiration, which I record as quickly as possible, usually in one spontaneous take. I often get the sensation of delicately holding open a channel – to my unconscious or The Mystery or whatever – in order to allow the creative energies to flow through and take form in my conscious mind. “Waiting for the miracle” is not only the title of the album and the opening track (my personal favorite) – it is a phrase that has captured my imagination for the past year or so, as if contained within it might be some code I’ve yet to decipher, a secret transmitting in a muffled whisper I can’t quite make out.

Of course it’s possible I simply subconsciously lifted the idea from Miller, as I did read Cancer once before, many years ago. I remember being rather unimpressed with the book at that time, telling my brother it was a disappointment in the wake of Tropic of Capricorn and Black Spring. For whatever reason, I savored every word this go around. It felt as if I were reading the book for the first time. Not a sentence struck me as familiar, and when I came across the “miracle” passage, the base of my spine lit up like a fuse, sending fireworks flashing across the dome of my skull for hours.

It makes no difference to me whether the insight was born in Miller’s imagination or my own. Hell, if it were originally written on the stall wall of a Burger King restroom, or pissed into the snow by an Eskimo – all the better, I say. Nobody owns the truth – or ideas or song lyrics or melodies, for that matter. We’re all playing with the same wad of Play-Dough, and any one of us can roll out a perfect hot dog once in while, if we’re earnest or lucky enough. In any event, Miller and I gazed upon the same star and thought about this miracle, the one we’ve been waiting on as long as we can remember, the one that promises to turn everything the right way around. This miracle, we realized in a meteoric flash, is a phantom, a no show, and what’s more, it will never show, at least not in the way we always hoped it would.

As with all truths, we can always choose to look the other way, to simply ignore the bare facts of the matter. Or we can still hold out for the deathbed, as many do, for who can definitively say the miracle does not breeze in with the last breath. However, the moment it dawns on us we’ve been waiting for a ghost-train, one is either crushed like bug or completely unburdened. All middle ground is quicksand.

Having just related a rather hilarious anecdote about how an acquaintance of his (a disciple of Gandhi no less) mistakenly shit in the bidet at a French whorehouse, Miller imagines how wonderful it would be if the big miracle we’ve been waiting for turns out to be nothing more than these two lumps of shit, scooped from the bidet and served to us on a silver platter when the curtain finally closes on the whole drama. Miller, so it seems, found freedom in the utter hopelessness and absurdity of it all. And while my spine is still in tact and I’m straining to keep my eyelids raised, nonetheless it was long ago that I felt the ground give way beneath my feet. I’m in up to my armpits now, one hand on my bootstraps and the other upraised, waiting for a helping hand, or a lump of shit.

Thanks Henry.

When it rains…

Here on the Pueblo, when it rains, it comes down hard, I’m talking a fucking deluge. The sky just opens up and dumps it all on you – clouds, birds, airplanes, stars – the whole enchilada. It could go on like this for an hour, then suddenly stop, as if a giant, unseen hand just turned off the celestial faucet. A minute later it might come down again in a torrent, for another hour or more. It went on like this all day yesterday, and all through the night.

Of course, I needed to get to Santiago to see the doctor about my knee. Turns out, my travel insurance will cover the cost of an MRI, as long as El Doctor makes the referral. Jesus didn’t seem concerned about the rain, the condition of the roads, etc., so we headed out about 4:15pm. We managed to get there unharmed, although Jesus did mention as we crossed “the bridge” that there was a good chance it would be under water by the time we returned. “Then what?” I asked, naively. Well, then we’d just have to sit there and wait for the river to go down. Might take several hours, assuming the rain stops. No hay problema!

Anyway, it was a long wait to see the doc, but once we got in, he quickly went to work on the knee, taking it through all the drills. Of course, the whole exchange had to be translated, the doctor asking me “Does it hurt when I do this?” and me wincing and resisting, but for the most part relating that I didn’t feel any sharp pain, just some discomfort and weird sensations (and fear that at any moment I’d be in agony). The lack of pain seemed to perplex the doc, leading him to believe that the complete ligament tear he was sensing must have been the result of an old injury. “If it was recent, he’d be in more pain” he explained to my wife. He theorized that this old injury caused instability in the knee, causing the meniscus to tear during the soccer game.

I told my wife to tell him that, with all due respect, his theory didn’t make sense to me. I’ve only injured my left knee once, seven years ago, and the MRI showed no ligament damage, just a fracture. It healed fine and I’ve had no injuries since. Knee solid as a rock. Played sports a zillion times with total stability. Surely, I haven’t since shredded my knee ligament, without a hint of pain or swelling to indicate an injury took place? Besides, I said, I felt my knee get torn to shreds two weeks ago on the soccer field, with the pain being primarily where the torn ligament used to be. The doctor stuck to his guns, however, insisting the torn ligament must be from an old injury. At that moment, what little confidence I had in him vanished. Worse than being dead wrong, he was setting me up for an insurance nightmare. Old injury = pre-existing condition = no coverage for repair. And surgical repair will be necessary, he said, if I hope to ever play sports again. I do hope.

“At least we got the MRI referral,” I thought, as we headed back home in the downpour. “We’ll have to travel several hours to get to the nearest MRI facility, deal with continual confusion, etc., but the sooner I can get it done, the sooner I can get back on my feet. The thing now is to get back to the house in one piece.” How Jesus managed to navigate around the puddles and potholes, I don’t know. It was dark and the windows were all fogged up, and Jesus had to continually wipe away a spot through which to see the road ahead. We approached the bridge, but it was no passe. The pavement had to be at least a few feet below the surface of the rushing water, and a downed tree was blocking the way as well. Jesus told us that last year a car tried to cross during a flood like this and four people drowned. We voted unanimously to remain alive, so there was nothing to do but wait.

My thoughts were caught up in worries about the surgery, which would have to happen in the United States. “Shit, with all the associated expenses, I might not be able to return to Mexico at all. Even if I could swing the chunk of dough the insurance won’t cover and the travel expenses, still we will lose my part of the grant money if I need to be away for more than a month.” Every now and again a phrase from the mindfulness book would come to mind. Acceptance, Bobby. Don’t get caught up in your thoughts, Bobby. Return to your breath, Bobby. “Fuck all that!” I thought to myself, but before I could elaborate further, we were heading across the bridge, water rushing up over the tires.

When we arrived at the house, we noticed that the floor of our room was pretty wet. Rainwater had gotten in through the closed window and the ceiling was leaking in a few places. There was nothing to do but throw down some towels, move the bed to a dry place, and ride out the storm. When I turned the bathroom faucet on, the water that flowed out looked like diarrhea. Chunks of mud were being spit out into the sink. Our hosts informed us that this is just what happens when the river swells beyond its banks. Again, nothing to do about it but wait. It’s now 3pm the following day, and still the water is pure mud. No showering, no washing dishes, no washing clothes until the river deems it so. It’s the beginning of the rainy season, we are told. Might rain like this for days.

So, the MRI trip will have to wait. Patience – Isn’t that one of those fucking pillars of mindfulness? I’ve been laid up for two weeks now, and it’s hard to keep my spirits up. I’m a guy who likes to stay on the move. Shit, my whole philosophy of life has to do with allowing the body to move unfettered. I can see the atrophy setting in already, and I have at least several more weeks of immobility ahead of me. This was not part of the plan but, yes, it’s true, this is how it is. I can make the most of it or continue whining.

One thing I have been doing is sorting through the old journal files. Funny thing, the past. The sense of it I’ve been carrying around with me doesn’t seem to match up with the documentation. Stories I’ve been telling for the past few years, upon close inspection, appear to be significantly edited versions of what “really” happened, assuming the journal entries are closer to the truth of things. I’m not sure what to make of this. After all, we register an experience on a few levels at most, filtering everything through a mesh of conditioning, tangled thoughts and twisted expectations. Considering the teeny tiny attention spans most of us make use of, it’s no wonder it can take years to fully make sense of a single experience, to deeply understand even the briefest of openings to the majesty, the wonder of a given moment.

A few minutes ago, I concluded my trip down memory lane, arriving back at September, 2007. I am struck with how non-linear my past seems, as I sense it from the vantage point of today, right now, as it swirls and bubbles up through the portals of memory and dreams. The dramas and concerns that preoccupied me even a month or two ago, seem no closer to hand nor further away than the smell of Grandma’s kitchen, or the countless nightmares and longings of my youth. And so it will soon be with all this rain, and the worries about my knee, and the bumpy roads and muddy water. Soon the floodwaters will recede, and all will flow back into the mix, into the bubbling swirl of moments forgotten, where the past is churned together with the sound of pigs being slaughtered and the smell of burning plastic and the hollow pangs of hope and despair. A gurgling, sputtering ocean that spits its spindrift toward the sky, where the stars broadcast their secrets through the ether, and where revelation awaits, full of grace, for an open ear…

From last year:

9-1-06 [midnight]
The clock just struck midnight and it’s now September, which means nothing really, except that it’s time to gather up the August paper-trail, log it in and file it away under “the past” and summon the resolve to flip the calendar page and get on with it all. I’m particularly exhausted this week from time spent on the job, mixing it up with troubled teens and all the drama and unbridled energy they bring to each and every interaction. Still, I have it easier than most, with no kids of my own to worry about and no health problems or relationship woes to whine about. In fact, from an objective standpoint, I’ve got it made in the shade my friends. And yet…

And yet I still worry I might be putting off the really important shit, making some unnecessary compromise for the sake of some false sense of security, some empty promise of a brighter tomorrow that I never seem to quite make it to. I don’t know. This is just what’s floating through my mind right now. My wife is sleeping in the other room, and just imagining her sleepy face makes me smile. If I didn’t have her sleepy face in the other room, I don’t know what I’d do.

The kids I work with, with them it’s all potential, as it has been with me most of my life thus far. That sense we get deep down in the pit of our stomachs–that we’re onto something real this time, that we’re on our way to something big and beautiful–I miss that sense. It doesn’t seem to matter much that we never seem to get there, because there’s always another dream or scheme that captures our imagination, that stirs the bowl of our belly.

But right now, with August number 35 in the rear-view, I’m gripped with that terrible realization again, the one that always hits me when the swell of potential finds repose in the stillness and unwavering reality of what actually is. This is it. There’s nothing more and there never was. The crickets are chirping, or whatever it is that crickets do. My wife is drifting into a dream. And I am putting letters in front of a blinking line with the hope that in so doing I might find some release from the mounting pressure, the unrelenting squeeze of this psychological straight-jacket I keep slipping into.

I can choose life, wide-open, full throttle, right now. I have been here before.

Only now

Know what I like? Roosters. Wait, no – I wish death to all roosters. That’s what I meant to say. But I do like mornings here on the Pueblo. Mary Alice is off doing something or other with local health care providers. The kids are at school. Jesus and Juana are doing whatever it is they do during the day. Sweet solitude.

One good thing about having been crippled so many times in my life is that I’ve developed an impressive array of compensatory skills. Last time the left leg was busted, I had to return to work after three days. This meant operating the clutch on my VW Bus, a problem quickly solved with a mop handle, some duct tape, and a total disregard for safety. (Okay, my right hand is shifting gears, my left hand is operating the clutch – I guess that leaves the steering wheel to the Good Lord, as it should be, eh.)

I was working in a group home, taking care of six guys diagnosed with schizophrenia. I cooked, cleaned, shuttled them around town, occasionally arranged for emergency transportation to the hospital for “re-stabilization” – that sort of thing. I eventually got to the point where I could carry multiple pots and pans to and from the kitchen, using just my armpits to operate the crutches.

This morning I only went so far as to employ the “one armpit technique,” in order to prepare and clean up after breakfast. It’s nice to be back in a routine of sorts. Breakfast (Raisin Bran), coffee (cold Nescafé), a bit of reading while the bowels prepare for take off, then the whole nine yards in the bathroom.

Sipping my Nescafé, I hear a knock at the door. It’s the tile guys. Rumor has it they’ve been too hung over to work the past several days. They want to do the bathroom now, and even though it will mean keeping the “cargo” on the runway for several hours, I’d rather they get it over with, as this promises to be the last major disruption, vis-à-vis the room. Presently, the entire bathroom becomes a muddy, mosquito-infested swamp after each shower. Last night, coming out onto the bedroom tile, one of my crutches slipped out from under me and I fell (onto the bed, fortunately). Hopefully, they’ll slope the tile so that the shower water runs down into the drain. I don’t want to insult their intelligence by explaining this to them, by way of miming, although I’m dying to do so.

I’m trying to learn to let things go. Kabat-Zinn lays out the seven foundational attitudes of mindfulness practice as follows: Non-judging, patience, beginner’s mind, trust, non-striving, acceptance, and letting go. So far, I’m getting straight F’s across the board. Non-judging? Hello! Juana, anyone. And so it is on down the line.

One thing I find amusing about this whole mindfulness deal is that here I am getting this heavy emphasis on staying in the present, right, when all the while I’m constantly struggling to express myself in Spanish, due to the fact I only know how to conjugate verbs in the present tense. So, for me, there really is no past and no future. There’s only now, Bobby, there’s only now. And even in the now there’s not much more than “Good morning,” “How are you?” and “I need to use the bathroom, please.”

In the coming weeks, as I learn to express myself in the past tense, I’ll likely be dipping more into my own past, sifting through the wrack and rubble for a glimmer of that golden thread. As the present day-to-day involves little more than sitting on my ass, waiting for my knee to heal, it seems an ideal time to explore the archives in some detail. Yesterday, as I traveled back seven years to the time of the last leg break, I was amazed at how little I’ve changed in some ways:

In a bit of a daze from Brenda’s visit. When we embraced I wanted to hold on forever. She cried, as is her way. I got tight, which is my way I suppose. Experiences rarely hit me full on while I’m living them. It’s like I need to wait until the energy dies down to a tolerable level before I can re-inhabit my body. I spoke eloquently to her about the various psychological processes playing themselves out in my life these days. I’d rather live more and understand less, if a lack of immediate understanding is necessary to fully experience something. Whatever the case, here I am, detached but still willing to express my way through. Through to where, pray tell? All this talk about enlightenment, psychological integration and radical authenticity –what am I getting at really? It’s always left to do it, to live it out. That final step—the first step really–that I forget to take.

So here I am again, striving to be other than who I am. An impossible task, resulting only in my being a person who is just this – a man who continually strives to be other people. So who the fuck am I? What would it mean to simply be me? Are these now my words? Am I still striving? YES YOU ARE!!

John gave me a two-part documentary on Richard Rose, the supposedly enlightened man upon whose philosophy the Self Knowledge Symposium is based. I watched with great interest, not so much impressed with Rose himself, but fascinated by the group dynamics of the situation. I got the distinct impression that Rose matched some paternal, god-the-father image for most of his devotees. His students seemed to be genuinely blown away in Rose’s presence, but perhaps more by virtue of their own investments in him as some sort of divine archetype, rather by any inherent power that Rose may or may not possess. In one scene, Rose hypnotized a younger devotee in a matter of seconds. It occurred to me that the entire guru-student relationship might be governed by the same set of principles as that of hypnosis. Rose’s students were looking for some old wise man figure to project divine powers onto. For whatever reason, in the context of the guru-disciple relationship, students open themselves to experiences that they would avoid otherwise. Likewise, the person who gets hypnotized allows the process to happen, i.e. they want to surrender their wills. This is all fine and dandy and does not diminish the experience any—it does not make hypnosis, or the guru-disciple relationship for that matter, any less real. What I am interested in are the underlying principles that are operative in such a situation.

John and I discussed this for a while. I wondered if my pursuit of romantic love has been powered by a divine projection of sorts. The search for “the one” has always been the ultimate pursuit in my life. To me, the romantic/sexual relationship has always represented that ideal context where all the levels of myself would finally be revealed and integrated. Wholeness. Completion. Thinking about it now it seems obvious that I looked to Brenda for salvation, as if she were a goddess. It’s interesting to consider that our modern notion of romantic love is not nearly as natural and universal at it would seem to be. John related that Jung spoke of how romantic love as we know it did not even exist in history and literature until fairly recently. We think of such things as arranged marriages as barbaric affronts to the sacred ideal of love. It’s just so hard to imagine a culture where the notion of “being in love” with someone simply doesn’t exist. Perhaps the teacher-student relationship was the context in which such peoples experienced the dynamically charged brand of love that we modernites now reserve for our chosen mate. Anyway, it all feels like a lot of bullshit now. I’m just fulfilling my commitment to practice writing. Not much life behind these words. But my typing is getting a little more fluid. The main feeling here is that I’m dissociated from my body. I still can’t seem to tap into the feelings that undoubtedly must be lurking under the surface in the wake of Brenda’s visit. In spite of the daze I’m in right now, my resolve to live life all-out seems strengthened somewhat. Tomorrow I get the verdict on the knee, and that will help me move on a bit, at least I hope it does. So much of my energy is tied up in worrying about it.

I just don’t want to step away from the keyboard until I generate a little heat, until I tap into something real and let it flow for a while. Even a second will do. Searching my heart. Searching for my heart. So here I am. I’m writing. Trying to be a writer. Struggling as always. Waves of anxiousness crash against the walls of my belly. Charlotte’s laugh, her voice, resonates in my chest. My friends are out there, behind that door. I’m in here, behind this door and a thousand more. A Pandora’s Box of held breaths, layers of muscles drawn tight, forming knots. Eyes turned away. Quaking heart, trembling in the dark. Head spinning into a whirl of white dust clouds. Restless body that would flail and stomp with a broken leg. I want to taste life. Where is my life? I love Brenda. She is real. This is all real. She was here, today, in my arms. I smelled her hair. I want to love everyone. I would rather die than continue to live in fear. I would rather die than to live in fear. If not all-out, then what’s the fucking point. So here I am. Tired and ready for sleep. Tomorrow I will rise, on one leg, and live.*

The toxic fumes of burning garbage drift through the large window directly behind me. Here on the Pueblo, what garbage is not littering the streets is heaped into pits or piles and burned, and our neighbor Rosa typically torches a pile around this time everyday. Everything, from plastic Coke bottles to soiled toilet paper, is set ablaze not fifteen yards upwind, creating a steady flow of lung-coating, eye-burning, stomach-turning smog lasting an hour or more.

The chickens here are “free range,” and they roam from yard to yard feeding on trash heaps. I just threw some leftover chicken bones on the pile the other day. I wonder what chickens think of the taste of chicken. “Mmm, tastes like chicken!”

It’s easy to forget, looking at the mess left by the “Hand of Man,” just how beautiful this area is, in the wide-view. The surrounding mountains are lush with brilliant shades of green. Once I get on my feet again, I’d like to get out to “the hill” everyone talks about, the one with the gorgeous view. If nothing is done about the poverty and total lack of infrastructure, this pueblo will be one big garbage pit in a few years. I can hardly fathom the health problems that must result from the unsanitary conditions.

Sometimes I wonder if my nine months here won’t be unlike living in the womb of a crack-addict. Back home, I was more health-conscious than most. No hydrogenated oils. No high-fructose corn syrup. Everything organic, when feasible. My coworkers seemed to get a kick out it, me with my daily organic spinach salads and PB&J’s made with twelve-grain bread, all natural peanut butter and pure fruit jam.

Here I use Skippy and Wonderbread, and I scarf it down like it’s manna. And sure, Coke and Pepsi might be dissolving my teeth, but at least there’s no worry about “the amoeba.” Besides, all the supposed health benefits of mindfulness meditation should balance things out, right?

There’s only now, Bobby. There’s only now.