The Road and Other Things I'm Ruminating On

Last night, after working another shift wherein I made little to no money, I met up with my friend Lynn in the hopes of forgetting about the tanking economy and my sick mother and well, my sick mother. At least for a few hours. It worked for awhile, at least during drinks and pizza. Then we decided to go see Whip It - you know, that girl-friendly roller derby romp directed by Drew Barrymore that hardly anyone saw? Yes, that one. Well friends, others must have needed a similar pick me up, because it was sold out. The only other thing playing in the next 20 minutes that neither of us had seen? The Road.

Now, I know what you're thinking, because my mom said it this morning. "No you didn't. You didn't!?!"

Yes, I did. I'd read a little bit of Cormac in grad school, which featured trees full of dead babies and a dude who liked to do it with corpses, so I knew it would be grim. But Oprah picked it, people, Oprah! (I will confess her that I did not read the book. And I won't. Two hours of that was enough.) And this isn't to say it was a bad movie, as really, in terms of Apocalypse movies, it's a solid A-/B+. And I know this might sound naive, but I just didn't think it would be so, well, apocalyptic.

This photo would be a taste of the mood and lighting of the entire film:

Um, Dad, I know we don't have food, but couldn't we get just a splash of color
somewhere in this new hell-on-earth world?

I will say I've never been a fan of the end-of-it-all movie, given that I feel there's enough horror right here in front of us every day and that it seems like overkill to spend one's time watching a tidal wave swallow NYC. But I sort of understand now why people do watch - life may be bad, but it's not holy-shit-there's-nothing-left-on-the-planet-but-some-crazy-rapist-cannibals-and-me-and-my-dad bad. And there is something to that, although this backdrop provided me no escape from thinking about my mother, because at its heart, The Road is about the enduring power of love, especially that of family. So there I am, watching *spoiler alert*as the father dies, this kid's only hope and humanity in the world and he is left to go on alone and find something to hold onto. The interesting part? He's got one bullet left, and he doesn't use it to kill himself. And I guess in that sense, he carries his dad and his love with him into the unknown.

It haunted me, those images, that idea, especially given that I will have to do just that when my mother dies, and I am terrified some days as I wonder what that will look like, how that will even be remotely possible. The world without her in it, and me, somehow continuing to exist. We are a little over two months out from surgery, and she is doing so well right now it's hard to imagine we aren't in some kind of magical remission, that she will just be disabled but will live on just fine, for like, well 40 more years. But then, when she is tired, or seems a little less with it, I panic, I think, "Is this it? The beginning of the end?" and I imagine watching her slow decline and eventual death, role playing it in my mind, making a feeble attempt to prepare.

When I get too far into that little game and suddenly find it hard to get out of bed or up off the floor, I remember the people in my life who will still be here to help me carry on. My amazing friends, her amazing friends, all of the people that have rallied around us. Then I call or text my boyfriend,Matt, who, like no one else in this world, understands. We spent Thanksgiving together, which was also the anniversary of his father's death two years ago from the same brain cancer my mother has. Watching him grieve, I was hit with the reality that I will have my own anniversary, my own enveloping sadness, and like he had to, I will have to go on into the unknown without the person I loved most in this world. Except there is this: I will have him, which provides more comfort than I ever thought possible. I sort of believed that having someone to help you through the impossible was a hollow promise, that in the end, you still do it alone. In five short months, he has proven me wrong time and again, more all the time. And that, along with the outpouring of love that has come to my mother since her diagnosis, is the hope I hold on to, the love that propels me into the next day.

All that said, I even managed to shake off my Road hangover today, in part by downloading some of the photos Matt and I took over the weekend - I hope you find them a splash of color in this sometimes gray world.

It's a little known secret that Mimosas really help with cooking. It's kind of amazing.

Matt's cat, Miles. She's had him to herself for 10 years, and wasn't super thrilled about me, but this visit I got some purring action and even a little leg rub, not to mention some curling up at my feet.
I think we are going to be just fine.

How about that turkey? Matt spent at least 15 minutes patiently stuffing sage butter
underneath its skin. What did I do? Made gravy.

Gravy, baby. And buttermilk mash.

Our dining room and meal, complete with a little Beaujolais and Duke Ellington.

Please forgive the sap, and the excessive cuteness of this picture. I couldn't resist. Did I mention I haven't had a boyfriend in 8 years? Yep. But this guy was soooo worth the wait. I am a lucky, lucky lady.

Giving Thanks

We are not huge on the holidays in my family, as growing up in a divorced household, we had four Christmases sometimes (one at mom's, one at dad's, one at dad's girlfriend's, one at the grandparents) which might seem great, but was really just a super long, exhausting day. Worse for my sister, I would imagine, as she had to hear me tell the same stories over and over again to different rapt audiences - which I couldn't get enough of, of course - so that to this day, if I repeat myself, she either leaves the room or interrupts with an abrupt, "Yeah, you already told me that. Like three other times."

The other reason the holidays have never been a huge to-do for us had much to do with the fact my mom was a single mother for so long, with little money, time or energy to put together a huge meal and/or decorations. She tried for years to make up for this, spending too many hours many years cooking for an audience of two who couldn't appreciate her culinary talents, while trying valiantly to put up the Christmas tree without at some point, bursting into tears. Imagine my mid-30s mother and my sister and me, 6 and 9 respectively, trying to: A. Get the tree into the stand and B. Trying to get the fucking thing to stand up straight. It was a nightmare from start to finish, complete with splinters in our fingers and pitch in our hair.

As we got older, Ma said, "Fuck it" to the pressure and traditions, and we often went out for Thanksgiving dinner or ordered in Chinese on Christmas Eve. With all of us living in Portland for the past five years, we've started up some traditions again (although Ma refuses to get a tree, something she banned in the early 90s, because as she said, "Nobody really gives a shit, do they?") but around Thanksgiving, Ma, my sister and I would search for recipes in Gourmet, Sunset and the like weeks ahead of time, and design a kickass menu. Then, after going to yoga in the morning on Thanksgiving day, the three of us would cook all day together.

This year is different in so many ways, obviously, as Ma can no longer cook or do yoga, and we are all a little strung out from the events of the last few months to slave for several days over the stove. This year, too, I'm leaving town to go see my lovely Matt in San Francisco. We are putting together the works of a Thanksgiving dinner for two, which I am dorkily excited about. (I'm even smuggling a pecan pie on the plane for him, his favorite. I am becoming so domestic as of late, sometimes I don't recognize myself. This is, surprisingly, not a bad thing. Post to follow on that topic later.) Given all of these circumstances, Ma decided to order cater in the whole shebang from New Seasons, which she has been telling everyone amounts to about $100 for dinner for 7 or so.

And I guess that brings me to what I have to give thanks for right this second, as I look at how our traditions have devolved and evolved over the years, mainly the amazing way my family has been able to stretch and change and grow around the things that have been thrown at us over the years - from divorce to cancer to death and cancer again. We seem to be able to pick up the pieces and reform them in a way that we are able to leave the past and our old selves behind and move forward, and for that that I am forever grateful. This kind of room for growth allows a space in which we can all keep moving towards the best version of ourselves. It is also the kind of space that allows for my mother to be beside herself with joy that I'm cooking Thanksgiving dinner with my boyfriend this year, even if it means being away from home and from her. For that kind of grace and love, I will be thankful today, tomorrow and every day after.

Wow, Is Anyone Still Reading This Blog?

I guess it's hard to read something that hasn't been updated in three weeks, and I really, really swear, I'm coming back with a vengeance to this forum, just as soon as my life settles down a bit. I moved back into my parent's house this weekend to help take care of my mom and just to be close to her during this time, and as soon as that was finished (or during really) the gear shift on my car fell apart, I ended up working like 20 hours in two days at the restaurant and my dear friend Margi came to visit. What does this equal? Zero time to blog. But soon, people, soon.

I will, however, regale you with my latest Forces of Geek column! Enjoy.

http://www.forcesofgeek.com/2009/11/me-myself-and-macabre.html

More Thoughts On Ma

I remember reading Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" a few years ago, and while I was blown away by it and the beauty of the emotions it captured, the description of grief so eloquently stated and recorded, it was something I could put down and not fully understand. What would it be to see your husband of 40 years die in an instant at your dinner table? I had no idea, and was grateful. At the time, I could vaguely relate it to my sister's cancer diagnosis, to the changes and the fears I encountered as she went through treatment and recovery, but the difference is she recovered, and my grief subsided, went dormant, was, for the most part forgotten. As I moved forward with my life there were other problems to contend with, namely, my career and my dating life, both in a sorry states of disarray.

Now, though, I am remembering bits of Didion's book as my mom's cancer takes its twists and turns. I am overwhelmed in moments by a kind of grief that gives me no warning, no buildup, just takes me and lays my flat. If I am lucky, it happens when my boyfriend Matt is around and he scoops me up in his arms and lets me cry, wail and lament. When I am not so lucky, it is just me, pinned to my bed or my couch by the thought of losing my mother. I am not used to this kind of thing; I've always been fairly self-aware, able to handle what comes and when I can't, I know it, can recuse myself from the situation or the moment, breakdown and recover, rejoin life. This isn't like that. It's like nothing I've ever experienced. Didion writes about grief being like crashing waves that swallow you then recede, how it seeps in to every aspect of her life, how she doesn't drive down certain streets in Los Angeles, because there are too many memories there and for her that it would be like a vortex, sucking her in and swallowing her whole.

Although I'm sure there will be those types of vortexes for me when she is gone, for now my experience is different, as I can't avoid them in any real way. To be around my mother is to be in that vortex, a look, a smile, the sound of her laughter; anything and everything could be the moment that swallows me whole. And I wouldn't want it any other way, as to not be around her in this time would be more painful than any thing grief could throw at me, but there is a new phase of her illness happening now, one that can't be denied, and that is what I do fear might eat me alive. And that phase is this: she is dying, and there is no way around that particular vortex.

Her incredible doctors intervened a few weeks ago because they knew it was happening, and we perhaps knew it too. I could see it in the way she couldn't remember what happened the day before, didn't even want to try. How she shrugged about it all, simply had nothing to say, which is not like my mother at all. Then there was the way she lost her thoughts in the middle of them or reached for a knife three times in a row and didn't know what she was doing, simply sighed and gave up. She was sleeping more and more, and having small seizures despite the herculean amount of meds she was on. So they told us that surgery was the best option, and she had less than a day to decide. Yes, she said. And so did we. As to what exactly that would entail, well, she now says, we were naive.

We assumed it would be like her biopsy and when she recovered from her seizure, that she'd be fine nearly immediately. The 48 hours after surgery were nothing of the sort. She was so sick the day after it was painful to watch, nauseated and vomiting, so uncomfortable and out of it that there was little we could do. Then the next day, watching her search for language and not be able to get out the simplest of sentences, to think that she might never come back from that was also impossible. I knew in my heart she would, but just didn't know how long the lag time would be. The night after her surgery (the same day) she seemed able to understand us, and while I was talking to a nurse in the hall, she said, "Yeah," at a very pointed moment.

"Ma," I said. "You're not missing a beat, are you?"

"I understand everything," she said.

It was beautiful, but also the last sentence we would hear for awhile. I held on to it for days. She was stuck in her head for the next few days, unable to get out the words she was looking for, having trouble finding the word "no." Speech therapists came in, did ridiculous tests, left. Meanwhile, her head began to swell in a way I can only describe as pancake-like. I tried not to look startled when I came in one morning, but I mentioned it to one of her good friends, Jan, who's been with us since the beginning of this ordeal.

"Ok, that's it," she said. "I'm asking the nurses about it. I didn't want to alarm anyone."

"Alarm anyone?" I said. "You can't fucking miss it. Her head is huge."

She talked to the nurses, who told her that this, along with the nausea and the aphasia (her inability to find words, sentences) was all "expected." "I feel like telling them that none of this is fucking expected," Jan grumbled, and I agreed.

We spent hours in the ICU waiting room, my stepfather more upset than I'd ever seen him. "I just don't know if this was all a mistake," he said. "If we'll be able to talk to her like we have before, if her recovery time is going to be longer than her life expectancy."

Because I adored and trusted her surgeon, I just kept saying over and over again, with no real evidence beyond my gut feelings, "Listen, Dr. A wouldn't have done this if he didn't think she would pull through beautifully and have a better quality of life for awhile. We have to believe that. There's no other option than to believe that." He would nod and squeeze my hand and cry.

My sister brought in a point chart for our mother at some point in the middle of all this, a very simple one with a few key words in its center, words like "yes" "no" "hungry" "thirsty" and "fuck." Fuck has always been a very important word for my mother, something she punctuates many a sentence with, and using this word was a way she rebelled early on from her repressed childhood. It seemed important now that she had access to it, although a nurse in the ICU didn't necessarily agree. Jan had to pull her aside and explain what this word meant in our family, it's importance, all it stood for. She loosened up after that, but I'm not sure there's anything funnier than a grown woman post-brain surgery getting in trouble for pointing at the f-word. As Jan put it to said nurse, "Look, we don't mean to offend you, but we probably will."

I had to go to work on the second or third day of this ordeal, and went in to say good-bye to my mother only to find her with one eye so swollen it didn't even look real, like a prosthetic the size of half my fist had been glued on as some kind of horrible joke. I kissed her forehead and left, unable to think about anything else for the next 24 hours, nearly swallowed whole by that particular vortex.

By the time I came back the next day, Ma was talking, full sentences, fairly non-stop aside from when she would suddenly need an hour nap. Our relief was palpable, as was hers. "I was so frustrated," she said. "I was afraid I was going to be a vegetable. I mean shoot me now if I can't talk." And it would have been the cruelest of blows in all of this, that of her surviving, but without the ability to speak. The memory loss, the loss of the right side of her body, the inability to do anything on her own pales in comparison. It would be no life for her to live, and I could not be more grateful that she is at least allowed this for the last few months of her life.

As the days went on, her speech grew stronger, the swelling went down and she was transferred to a regular room. When Dr. A came to see her, she thanked him for the gift of time. He looked at her for a long moment and nodded, getting a little choked up. Next to her on the food tray was the chart my sister had made.

"Ah," he said, "Such a good word to have at hand."

We told him then about getting in trouble for using it.

"What?" he said. "Why? Listen, I've spent many an hour researching this issue, and aside from using it in way that would equal yelling fire in a crowded theater, saying it is perfectly legal."

There was no better way of summing up my mother's trials those last few days, a declaration of sorts, that for awhile, things were going to be ok. That my mother would say that word again and again and again, as loud as she wanted to, for everyone to hear. She is dying, yes, but for now, she is still here, and I can hold the vortex at bay for at least a moment every time I hear her voice.

And just in case we forget: Ma's t-shirt to remind us.

Publishing News!

I have waited months for this particular anthology to come out, as I was so honored to squeeze my way in and write about the long lost art of the mix tape. It's about my romance with a boy in college who made me a mix tape called, "Odes to Angst." There's more to the story, but I don't want to ruin it for you. Pick it up, people! It's hardback! Very exciting! And officially releases on October 28th, but you can get an advance copy at Amazon, etc., but wouldn't you rather buy it from Powells? I thought so:

http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780312565527-0

I'm also in a local anthology called Voicecatcher and will be reading from it (a piece from my memoir) on Monday, November 16th, 7 pm., at the Hawthorne Powells. Come hear fabulous local writers and me. Mainly me. If you can't make the reading you can also order a copy here: http://www.voicecatcher.org.

And one last thing, a new Forces of Geek column. Very exciting, since I couldn't make the deadline last month.....

http://www.forcesofgeek.com/2009/10/so-i-cancelled-my-cable.html

P.S. My mom is out of the hospital and recovering well at home, and I'm catching up with my life. I'll be posting more about her and all that comes with it soon. Or relatively soon.

I'm A Little Short On The Funny...

.....so here are a few clips that made me laugh, despite Ma's sort-of-emergency brain surgery on Wednesday, and her two long days in ICU. I'll post more when I can.

My crush on Sarah Haskins increases 100-fold with each of her bits that I watch. This one is no exception.



And Chris Rock. My sister and I must have watched Never Scared a dozen times while she was going through chemo. The man is a genius. Favorite line, "We want to capture Osama Bin Laden and murder him. We're not going to rape him. That would be barbaric."

http://jezebel.com/5372888/chris-rock-on-roman-polanski-its-rape-rape?autoplay=true

Some Thoughts on Ma

I've started staying over at my parents two nights a week for the moment, so I can get more bonding time with Ma, which seems to be working well thus far. We laughed and cried so much in the past few days that we are both totally exhausted, but it's was a really beautiful time overall. I've finally posted on her site about the seizure last weekend and the grace and beauty and pain around it. If you're interested, you can read it here:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/bobbiema/journal

And here's my latest favorite picture of the two of us - I must be 3 or so here, she's all of 29. Crazy.

More to come later this week.....