a·crop·o·lis /əˈkräpələs/

The Acropolises were the fortified heights of Greek cities way way back before Yahweh came barging in and did away with all the cool gods who are now reduced to Marvel action movie heroes and such. How degrading, right?

A handful of years back, some plot-building exercise led me to create a fantasy world scenario for fun, where a fortified city of great import (like today's Vatican but relating to the chief Norse gods) faced a dire circumstance. Religious artifacts had been stolen by a great witch from another plane of existence in a plot to expose the city to destruction from its neighboring volcano, from which they were, til then, protected by said Norse gods, but to then concoct a scenario where a new-in-town temple saves the day and purports to expose the historical rulers as corrupt and evil. The new temple was controlled by the witch who presented herself as a god.

But how to make the good guys win? Where do the heroes come from?

I told the late Liberal Theologian about it (my then-housemate) and we agreed at once to recruit a crew and run the thing as a Dungeons and Dragons adventure. The players were an acolyte and kennel master of a good guy temple where the head priest was kidnapped, a young dwarf who's engineer father had disappeared while contracted to head a major renovation to the (ultimately evil) temple of the witch, and a Frost woman who's brother disappeared when caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. In her search for her brother she got herself unfairly pegged as a suspect by the citadel master of the guard and had to be rescued, in effect, by the others.

They won the support of the Gjall; the great leader of the citadel (like a pope) who had been brought visions of the young would-be heroes by the Norns (divine Norse messengers who do such things - kind of like the three ghosts in Dickens' Christmas Carol).

Together they discovered that the Frost brother had been killed unfortunately but they raided the evil temple and rescued the Dwarven father who'd been set aside as eventual monster food because he knew too much, and they found their way through a tower portal network to a gateway world (literally an upside down world - and this was well before Stranger Things!) where they confronted and killed the witch monster without having to go all the way to her own plane. There they also discovered the Frost Brother in living form and there the Gjall, now murdered but returned in Revnant form, was able to help them all understand that he was in a kind of purgatory and could never return to his material plane but would be going to the Nirvana; the paradise, of his own kind and soon. And one day brother and sister (and all their kin) would be reunited there.

In the process they saved the Ruling counsel of the holy citadel by stopping the witch from ascending to the Gjall position in the false form of the successor which she had covertly executed.

The adventure was a great success and I started writing the novel according to our shared blueprint.

In Part Two they would go after the remaining artifacts in a race against time to shut down the volcano. But my housemate had become sick with cancer at this time and it did not feel like any kind of priority to any of us.

The Liberal Theologian then passed away and I stopped writing the book and haven't touched it since. Her D&D character was in essence the central character of the book, and there was a lot of herself in there, and everything feels different now. Maybe one day I'll pick it up again. Who knows.  

The Big Renege?

I’m suddenly unsure about what I’m doing this April. I know I have to get moving again on the novel  I call Crazy Legs (working title). I was also about to take on the poem-a-day idea which I sort of view as a pact between the Ponderer and I.

But…

Today’s Evensies event was very well attended. Normally outside of November NaNo we usually get a couple or few participants on any given Sunday. Today we had around ten.

We used to meet every other Sunday outside of November; every even-numbered Sunday date, hence the name Evensies. When a core of us grew fonder and started meeting every single week we pondered a name change. It was The Liaison who said in essence: Hey, might it be cool if we just kept calling it Evensies? Even the odd ones! And not even explain why!

Yes of course it would, And so we did. And thank god because few things are so ghastly to me as a group who dares call themselves a writers group who collectively betray no imagination or sense of mystery.

Today’s Evensies was well attended because it was not so much a write-in as a call to arms. The Liaison himself has fallen. His battle with cancer ceased a few days back when his treatment strategy was dialled back with the goal to just keep him comfortable. Yesterday he died. His name was Chris Kelworth. His writing is here and there on the internet.

Today we shared a lot of tears and hugs. Shy writers who probably have social fears and disorders, I’m guessing: even they threw there arms around myself and others.

Chris passed on the eve of little April Camp NaNo. It was the eve of the main event; November NaNo when he fell sick in the first place. The irony is cruel. These events meant the world to him. Though I would like to think that the internet publishing success he was beginning to make a habit of meant a lot more!

In November he returned from brain surgery and still made his 50,000 word count which seems miraculous and yet I think we all knew he would. And now we’ve decided that this April we must honour him by tackling our own most ambitious word counts and following through. I am inclined toward this but it may mean I will have to let the poem-a-day endeavor slide.

About twelve years ago I came out to my first NaNo write-in and the Liaison was there; as quiet as a mouse; riddled with anxiety himself. He sat beside a priest who seemed the unofficial leader at the time and he would only talk to her. If someone would have told me that this priest would become a tremendous friend of mine; who would confide in me things she trusted to no other person, that I would move into her home and finally watch her perish from her own cancer and that this mousy little fellow would take over as our leader and a strong one at that … I would have said impossible and impossible!

People can be so different than what they appear or what we imagine. They never fit in the little box we design for them. 

Thorne’s Quest

I think it was five years ago, on November 30^th; the last night of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo): it was the Liberal Theologian, Aqualad and myself remaining at the coffee pub in the aftermath of a larger celebration. I then decided I deserved a decadent dessert waffle as reward for my NaNo success. I had won the challenge, setting my personal November word count record and in doing so finished the novel I’d started the year before on November 1^st. Aqualad agreed and claimed his own such reward, making it an event. L.T. then followed suit and named our night together: Wafflepalooza.

On the same date this year, I rushed away from my late shift at the Courthouse to join the greater gang for Wafflepalooza Six where staff reported to me that twenty waffles had been served!. Most of the gang had left by the time I arrived and another few left shortly afterwards, leaving Chess Champ, the Healer and myself. We talked about the struggles and victories of this craziest NaNo in our memories.

I announced that I intended to visit the Liberal Theologian, our former NaNo Scooterville leader, before going home. (I wished to discuss with her my failing evolution which certain  NaNo struggles made very apparent this year.) The others wished to join me. At that I was surprised but pleased. The conversation would be a different one but that’s okay.

L.T. still has no gravestone but her location is easy to find. It’s right under the brightest light in the cemetery. When her stone finally arrives it will be appropriately spotlighted.

We talked about her influences on us and the strong mark she left on the NaNo community; the culture she set in motion which we strive to maintain, and how we two became close and how I came to live in her home. We talked about her liberal relationship with God and her generous relationship with religion itself; one based almost entirely upon community and charity and not about specific dogma. How she came into that specific Anglican church where she made her career; one unusually behind the times by the progressive Anglican standards of the day, where its leaders held conservative and superstitious views. But L.T. was very strong. In no time at all she had all her opposition corrected, evolved, defeated or removed and her church became an extension of her own personality: a place of legitimate generosity and inclusiveness.

I knew all this through stories about L.T. which I really love to hear. They thrill me because I did not know her in her more heroic days.but only later, when NaNo was her only time to really shine. Beyond that her disability generally got the best of her and the scope of her life and influence, as happens to all of us eventually, was in decline.

In her final two days, spent in the hospice, she was almost always in shut-down mode; unconscious or semi-conscious or withdrawn, at least at times, by intent. I spent many hours at her side while she existed in some other awareness. How strange it must be, this otherspace of the dying. Where are you Gale? I asked more than once. In hindsight I suspect that, at times at least, she was very nobly making peace with her passing. At the time though I could not see that possibility, too fixated on the apparent problems I perceived.

Where are you? I asked her. Are you riding with Thorne in your other world? I really hoped that she was.

Thorne is the girl in her fictional Thorne’s Quest world. To what degree she and Thorne were the same person, I have to wonder. She wrote an eight book series about her; a very significant fantasy series with a robust imaginary culture and history. Five novels were self-published and had a following. The remainders still need editing which was not accomplished before the end.

The daughter was her editing partner and knows of specific changes L.T. desired beyond the obvious copy editing and continuity checks. Dog Whisperer was a beta reader and technical assistant and also knew the epic story well.

When it became apparent that L.T. would not survive long enough to finish this project but that she wished not to abandon her faithful readers, it was decided that the Daughter, Dog Whisperer and myself would form a committee to finish the job as best we could. I knew the least about the project but I saw that as useful in terms of a certain role I could play. I promised her that at the very least, I would be the impetus to make sure it happens. I promised her. And it has not happened.

The daughter is the official owner of this intellectual property. I broached the subject once with her and she couldn’t talk about it. It is not easy for her to deal with her mother’s absence.  Many things have been put off for a long time.

As we stood gathered around the lamp-lit unmarked hillock, I shared this heavy concern about Thorne’s Quest with Champ and Healer. They warned me that attempting to take on the project all by myself, if Daughter would only release the materials to me and be done with it, would be a very large and lengthy undertaking. But I assured them I could do it if necessary. I could sink myself into it and see it done. I am motivated enough.

I once began reading the first book of the series which I’d bought online when I barely knew L.T. I abandoned it though, temporarily, when I realized I’d been tripping on the unusual conventions of given names in this imaginary culture. I was mixing up characters. I needed to restart the book while taking notes on the character roster and their similar names.

I now realize that it’s time for me to finally do that. I finally realized that step one in getting this editing dilemma resolved is for me to read the books, and then try talking to Daughter again when I can better gauge the scope of the project.

What will I find, Gale? Will I recognize Thorne? Will I find you there? 

Keep it down, will you? I’m spiritually sleeping.

I am not present. I am not mindful. I am spiritually asleep. On the road, I’m yelling the “C” word at bad and selfish drivers. I’m laying in bed way too much and sleeping way too little.

I’m hopeless.

I have avoided facebook (and most people) since September 26^th. I can’t imagine going back.

I have stayed away from most November Writing Month write-ins in; especially the ones where a certain jackass semi-unintentional NaNoWriMo forum troll might be present because I’m afraid I will knock him unconscious with a well-placed punch to the jaw. And let’s face it. That would be a stupid thing to do because then my hand would hurt for a while.

A couple friends know that I am struggling. A couple others even know why. I’ve been pretty tight-lipped for the most part.

The Healer falls into the first category. We are - or were - arguably the two most significant leadership consultants to the writer pal known here as the Liaison who is the NaNoWriMo (November Novel Month) regional leader for Scooterville; a contingent roughly 2000 members strong of which about 220 actually participate on a given November, of which maybe 50 participate in the forum of which maybe 30 might be prone to coming out to a write-in or a social event at some point.

I had my life pulled out from under me - to put it as dramatically as possible. I also had my employer tell me that work was slow; the subtext being: I should look for another employer.

The Healer (my dear hiking buddy and part-time life-coach) suffered a home invasion just days prior to the November 1st NaNo launch - where she was punched in the face by the drug-fucked absconder of her cell phone and laptop (she got them back. Kudos to the cops). Her life-mate learned that he is being laid off in eight months. His kind of work is very specialized; hard to find.

And our pal the Liaison is suddenly - as far as we know - dying of brain cancer.

And official leadership is not at all a priority for either of us even though it is something we’re both skilled at. Therefore the NaNo community is being publicly led, for better or worse, by our pals Sickboy and Chess Champ with our support in the background.

This internet troll surely does not see himself as such but he is a giant buffoon who is scaring away a lot of very sensitive writers; many with social anxiety and I am seeing one of the most successful NaNo regions, which was rebuilt lovingly and profoundly gracefully by my dear departed pal the Liberal Theologian years ago, falling apart - if I may be so bold.

And here is me in my pathetic weakened state: furious at this fucker for undoing her noble work; apparently unable to be the peaceful balanced forgiving nurturer I once confidently manifested in myself. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. What has become of me?

In one of our frequent sad little support-group-of-two conversations with The Healer I said: “I’m semi-aware that I’m being a big baby but…”

But what? I can’t do anything about it? Maybe I can. Have I tried? Not really. Do I fucking feel like trying? No, I don’t. Sometimes I think I want Thing One and Thing Two - lunatics of The Fucking Century (Trump and Jong-un) to fire up a thousand nukes and put us all out of my misery. God knows I’m way to cowardly to ever take my own life.

“...But oh well.” is all I said.

She very much identified with this and so she put one of her thousand deadly creative skills to use and made us our very own meme which I shall here post. I hope one day I will look at it and look back at this and laugh and say “Never again.”

Suffering

Started the day revisiting Grandpa Munster at the hospital where he landed after a dizzy spell took his legs out from under him while having a pee, and his noggin collided with the porcelain toilet. Both beast and fixture survived the affair but the docs who patched him up took the opportunity to mention that he has pneumonia in one lung (as usual; he’s on antibiotics reliably two weeks out of every eight) and that he has acute kidney damage due to chronic dehydration but which is not irreparable.

“That’s what happens when you drink nothing but coffee for forty years,” I interjected (as I’ve warned him many times). Now that men and women in white coats are telling him likewise he seems to be starting to listen.

At noon I split for Sick Boy’s Game Den & Crazy Making Eyrie which he shares with an alcoholic hoarding terminally ill-ish mom (to their mutual simultaneous salvation and demise) where he managed to slip rather gracefully into the Miracle Saturn (which has eaten up $3000 in recent repairs to the wheel areas alone – at a time when my employment has been spotty at best) despite the crutches and the ghastly hole in his foot which somehow came about during an attempt to infiltrate an area of the eyrie sealed behind a thoroughly hoardified corridor.

En route to the medical centre we stopped at the bank to have his virtual monthly income cheque negotiated for conversion to much-needed food, rent and utility funds only to discover that the funds had been “previously negotiated.”

I’m not even sure what that means but apparently this is the result of some mistake (whether honest or malicious) and can only be rectified by a certain Disability Worker who is high on Sick Boy’s roster of personal nemesisses. Nemesai?  Nemeses? Ah! Nemeses! Like crisis pluralizes to crises! Thank you Spell Checker. Um… and apparently the evil disability worker will not be available for a week and thus there will be no food, no rent, no hydro payment to a hydro company which has run out of patience, and thus soon no hydro, but instead there will be hunger, a condemned apartment and swift eviction.

I’m not criticizing. I’m not judging; just observing. It seems like every problem in his life becomes an immediate foreboding of cascading problems with no break in the chain for possible solutions. I wish I had money to loan. I gave a modest donation instead.

It’s difficult to hear his roster of troubles on a regular basis. There is always a rebuttal to every suggested solution and always barriers put up - and awkward conditions attached - to any help you offer, which makes the help you intended become harder to give, and potentially laden with regret.

This is what mental illness – in this particular case – does. It throws a monkey wrench into goddam everything. Whatever the official combination of illnesses, conditions, syndromes etcetera are at play here: it should be summed up as Goddam Monkey Wrench Disease.

But I always wonder how much of this is necessary, and how much of it is optional: brought on by ineffective coping strategies perhaps, or failed adherence to them, or simply failed understandings stemming from the gap between psychological theory and physical facts. I have long been suspicious of our social presumptions concerning which mental machinations are healthy, or even  “sane” and which are not. I’m convinced in fact, that we are rather misguided in general, choosing the mental tendencies which are common and labeling them sane and healthy, only because they are normal. When in fact, normalcy may be the most fucked up disease there is, and very much at the core of the state of our social, economic and industrial world: a world in tragedy that is immensely – and probably now irreparably – fucked up despite all the thin surface comforts we all so blissfully and arrogantly take for granted, blind to the malignant grotesqueries which provide this veil.

Earth Writer said to me the other day, over coffee, that she was rethinking the nature of our attitude toward mental illness and starting to see it – in general – more as variation than illness. I applaud this thinking very much. How much of Sick Boy’s difficulties are a matter of mental dysfunction rather than just being different; her own preferences, fears and idiosyncrasies at odds with the structures we have built which serve the preferences of the normal . That would be a valuable and challenging experiment to dabble in.

Come evening, after struggling to stay awake all day, I hit the Six Minute Show where storytellers told their brief memoirs on the theme: Nevertheless She Persisted. My dear friend, who has insisted on remaining nameless for now, did muster the courage to participate.

I’m sure she wowed the audience from the start, beginning the brief tale with rich imagery and texture of the setting, informing us that we had a real writer on our hands! And then quickly but eloquently pouring an immense story from early childhood to present, into this confined space, so artfully, and sparingly choosing resonant little details from which we interpreted clearly: parental death, prolonged abuse, regular examination of suicide, but finally, perhaps just in time: The partner who is her “heart” and the son who is her “soul” and the “warrior woman” whose wise words also helped her to finally see value in her own existence. I knew the warrior woman in her final years; very well in some aspects, though I did not know her back in her heroic years, before she diminished somewhat and sought her own hero, and I yearn to hear those stories. I fought hard to hold back tears through all of this and even at her generous mention of dear friendship, with a nod toward me.

Her message in the end was one about joy and celebration: an attempt to re-gift the warrior woman’s good words to those in the audience who needed them; for the event was a fundraiser (as all the Six Minute Club’s events are, I believe) to, on this night, a group called SACHA which helps victims of abuse.

As the actual nature of the event had finally dawned on me early on, I asked my pals: “Am I going to feel terrible about being a man by the end of the night?”

“Nope,” was my friend’s reply. “You’re going to feel good about being a good man.”

Touche!

There were many other almost-as-great storytellers that night. I’d love to say more about their charming and diverse offerings but this post grows long. I will pass this fine moment along though, from the woman who spoke with delightful humour of her struggles with men and with the law and with her own mind, who concluded with a conspiratorial smirk and said: “I don’t suffer from mental illness...”

“ I’m enjoying it.”

Peace out, folks.

FWG

Friendly ghosts

Through my work “week” of 12-hour night shifts, all my real time is spent at the office where I am very comfortable and happy and productive and getting paid to do a little bit of The Man’s work (which I welcome) and a lot of my own work (which is a joy) and there I eat my meals and watch my daily movie. At home, in my short twelve hours between shifts, I am just in bed sleeping or trying to sleep.

Saturday, I awoke and made myself at home in my home for the first time in a while. These are the times I would normally have chatted with the Liberal Theologian over coffee. My heart felt heavy in her absence yesterday, the heaviest yet since her passing a year ago.

After a while I realized why: because we would have been talking about the latest news from our dear friends. Aqualad has been accepted at MacMaster University; a critical step in the long road to becoming a veterinarian; the singular dream he has nurtured since early childhood!

L.T. and I would have been talking about him and how special he is and how much we love him and his moms too; Earthwriter and Dog Whisperer, and that would have been such a joyful conversation!

But wait.

Why do I say that it would have been?

Where did L.T. go, after all? Her body was turned to cinders and put in a box. Is that my friend in the box? I was not friends with her material form. Our connections happened in the air; in our ears. The agents of our minds connected through language. Those connections are not in the box. They have remained.

I realized today “People live on in our memory” is not just some platitude; not some trick to ease pain. None of the substance of our friendship went in the box. Her words remain in my head as real as they were when she first spoke them. Feelings remain. Sights remain.

What is friendship? What are human connections? These things are not material. They continue to affect me. My brain’s rewiring with each and every observation of her, they are not reversed upon her death. Her effects live on.

Her physical body meant nothing to me; only the things we shared. Our friendship consisted of energy and interpretations. They are not in the box. They are real and eternal and they apply themselves now to these new affairs which make me happy! I am having the joyful conversation after all.

She is still in my mind as real as ever, and there in my mind we are having the conversation.

In which FWG adopts little-girl strategies

I got rip-roaring sick over the holidays which turned me into a pouting indulgent lazy slob; a habit that has been hard to give up upon recovery. Then, in trying to re-capture an iota of discipline and a proper writing habit, I unleashed a crisis of confidence. Everything I tried to write swiftly prompted the question: Who would want to read this shit?

The one thing I have done in any responsible measure the last couple months is research and sustained quiet contemplation. There is much to report from all that, and much overdue. Very often of late I have questioned my goals and direction; even my “outer purpose” in life. More on all of that to come.

One thing I think I know though: Writing still has a major role to play for me, even if it is only to document my struggle for the sake of some peer or peers on a similar path. In fact, I think that that may be the real purpose of this blog. That may be the answer I’ve been seeking since I started this – what? Ten years ago?

I must get back in the writing habit and make it a stronger habit then ever. My most productive writing came in the years I lived with the Liberal Theologian. We celebrated her life last night, a year since her passing. We sang songs and shared words. And food of course! I am inspired by that and also by the documentary, Life Itself; the story of Roger Ebert, a (Pulitzer prize-winning) writer and film lover; a man whose passions I share.

I saw Neo recently. We talked for more than eight hours. It was very comforting. I will see Renaissance Kid soon and Skeeter Willis and also lean on their good counsel and energy.

Changes are happening. I have much to share.

Dear friends The Ponderer, The Healer and The Liaison, all fine writers, two of them so far published, have drawn me into their Constant Writer Club. In the eternal battle for writing discipline, we have shamelessly adopted the strategy of small children!

Today I wrote. So I got a sticker on my calendar. Just a small one for now because it’s only day one of the streak. They’ll get larger as I go to work daily without a day off. Today’s sticker is a clam. ‘Cause that’s how happy I am to be writing again.

Terri

I was either sixteen or seventeen when I dreamed of my biological paternal grandparents whom I had not seen since I was a young child. Days later I journeyed by bicycle to Stoney Creek and triggered a strange and joyful sequence of familial reunions.

Uncle Dave, just ten years my senior, had married a woman with two kids from a former, troubled, relationship. Terri was my age and Steven, just a year younger I think. While everyone in the extended family treated me with tremendous kindness, almost made a celebrity of me, it was Dave’s immediate family that I forged the strongest connection with, probably for the obvious reason that they were more in touch with teen culture. The other cousins were all younger.

Terri, Steven and I became instant friends. I slept over with them on more than one occasion. I attended my first rock concert with them. I even deep-kissed a girl for the first time in their presence; an event that no doubt bolstered my reputation, misguidedly so, in the eyes of Steven who was a prodigious stud at fifteen. They were wildly gregarious, more so than any of my current high school friends, and they treated my shyness with a good-natured, almost naive respect. “Mellow,” they called me, and, “laid back.” They seemed as pleasantly intrigued with my differentness as I was with theirs. They introduced me to new crowds and new behaviors and in hindsight I can see that my own process of emerging from shyness; one component of a dual coming-out, took root in this friendship.

Terri, in particular, was guileless and cheerful in her manner and would probe without reservation into whatever subject suddenly interested her. It is much to her credit that I felt so comfortable around her, despite my normal reticence, that I was happy to engage in any of her questions about my life, experiences or opinions.

This friendship did not thrive for a long time though. Seventeen is a volatile age and we three were headed in very different directions; Terry to early motherhood and myself toward an alternative lifestyle – so they called it. Steven was so friendly and so generous in his own way, that all the stories of his juvenile delinquency seemed a joke to me. Surely he was done with all that. But I was naive at the time. I hadn't yet realized that criminality was far from the absurdities portrayed by Death Wish flicks and the like. I didn't realize that our struggle to thrive within the umbrella of the law, with all of its shadows and secrets and compromised ethics, is not so different from the alternative; the struggle to thrive outside of the law, under a different set of codes. So it was a shock to me when my new cousin, immediately dear to me, vanished into that world; a world I have only come to begin to understand three years ago, upon employment with Corrections Canada and subsequent volunteer work with troubled men.

Terri and I crossed paths infrequently over the last 27 years and her cheerfulness was a delight each time. We always mouthed intentions to get together some time but we never did. It was always something that sounded great but was never a priority; like so many other great things in life that are easy to put off for the sake of more critical affairs. What a mistake, I realize.

I was deep into the Liberal Theologian’s struggle with breast cancer and the more dire emergent cancer, when I learned that Terri was in the same boat; breast cancer running from bad to worse.

One week after L.T.’s passing I forced myself to attend the funeral, and was glad I did, and then I set my thoughts on Terri. I needed to visit her. I needed to talk to her about our old teen friendship and how awesome it was for me and what it meant to me. Yes, just as soon as I get a little time off from work.

But of course she couldn't wait that long. My opportunity to inject a few joyful moments into her deeply difficult experience has expired.

My dear Aunt Karen, and to some near degree if not the same, my Uncle Dave, have had their second of two children slip through their fingers in one way or another. This is crushing to me emotionally. It is an unbearable contemplation; parents losing children. At L.T.’s funeral I did not face her parents. I knew there was no way I could do that without falling apart in front of them and I knew they wouldn't want to witness that.

But I have wanted very much to see my uncle and aunt for a long time now. I haven’t seen them really, since Biodad’s funeral, another blunder of mine; another total absence from a person’s final stage of life.

For the same reason as L.T.’s parents, I dread facing my uncle and aunt, but more so: I want to see them. I don’t want to lose them from my life. So I will try to see them and I will try to be strong as a rock.

Waiting... waiting...

This will sound phony; cliché, but it’s true. I sit there session after session watching and hearing her long laboured breaths and thinking each one is the last. There is a static pause between them. Is that it? Is it over? Every time… No. One more… And now? Now is it over…?

Suddenly I find myself rising from the chair and hear myself uttering “I can’t do this” and I’m walking down the hallway purposelessly, having no conscious will to do or say what I did, but animating like a puppet. Pure instinct perhaps. I realize that I am driving myself completely crazy.

She is asleep or semi-conscious all the time now and her only infrequent whispers are to assert her will to die, or else to answer “No [I’m not in pain].” I must confess admiration. I never imagined she had the strength to face the end this way. But what do I know?

The doctor has warned that she could go on this way a long time. Even without eating or drinking, the accumulated fluid in her bloated limbs could supply her body for weeks. I’m aghast at the morbidity of it.

And so it lasts all day and into the evening. Visitors accumulate. I beg off to grab a few hours of sleep. I will come back and take the night shift, perhaps alone again with this silent new friend who does not resemble the Liberal Theologian.

At 1 AM I awake and prepare to return. I check the phone and see I've missed a recent call from Monica.

Relief and dread. I call her back and receive the news. It’s all over.

It’s all over.

So I go back to bed and lay awake until dawn.

It’s a bit of a marvel, looking back on it. I was so preoccupied for so long with my concerns about the issues and concern for LT and concern for The Daughter. And never once during her living cancer experience did I spare a moment’s thought for the hole that would be left in my own life. All the great talks we've had. All the helpful psychological views she shared as I pored over the sufferings of my friends and loved ones and the wards of my charitable work. I will miss all that generous input and advice and the brave transparency we made of our lives to each other.

Trust. We had magnificent trust in one another. Not perfect, of course, for that is only possible for two people who have entirely escaped the matrix of illusions, but... magnificent.

Strange I never once, until now, thought about her coming absence and all the best things about her and all I would miss.  I think she once accused me of being in denial that she was dying. She may have been right. Perhaps I still am.

Let's get on with it

The white-haired woman lays lifelessly in bed, surely farther on then Liberal Theologian. The Earnest Chef heads right for the poor women’s doorway before I can warn him it’s the wrong room. But then I recognize the bed-side man who’s holding the patient’s hand and it’s LT’s father. It’s me who was wrong.

“Should we stay?” I whisper to him, “Or would you prefer to be alone with your family?”

“Oh – stay,” he says. So we sit and I take LT’s other hand. It’s hard to know if she recognizes my presence or not. Every visit she continues to decline.

More family are in the hospice’s lounge area and they come and go regularly. The daughter has already visited today. She’s working this evening; a line-up of students to tutor in their homes. LT makes rare communication attempts to ask for her daughter. “She’s coming back in the morning,” we keep telling her.

Eventually I must go move the car in accordance with limited free-parking roulette, and upon return the Earnest Chef pulls me back out to the hallway. His face is pained. He reports that she is expressing her desire for things to end.

It’s like a blow to the head. Instinctively my hands move to protect my face. Or maybe I’m trying to hide from it. Suddenly we’re embracing fiercely and weeping.

“I want you at the end,” she says. Her voice is a mouse whisper. “I want you at the end.”

“Of course,” I say, squeezing her hand just ever so barely. She longs for touch but so easily interprets injury. 

“I want you at the end… I want you at the end…” I am touched but not flattered. She wants us all at the end, I know. But I also know that she will not, in the end, be capable of fully grasping who all is present and who is not.

The nurses confirm “a marked deterioration” over the course of the afternoon. “Her daughter should be informed,” they say. But I have already left her voice and text messages with the Earnest Chef’s cell phone contraption.

I’m heart-broke over Dog Whisperer. She is probably LT’s best friend of all. But hospitals are a torture for her. Do I send word of the developments so that she can agonize over it? So she can beat herself up over the attempt-to-visit-or-don’t-visit equation and all the pressure and perceived guilt around it? I feel I have no choice but to be forthright and send word but I bail out a little and send word to her family: private messages to Earth Writer and Aqualad. Of course, they tell her as they must.

I am holding her hand when her Mom and Dad each come to say goodbye and “see you tomorrow” and “I love you.” I drop my head low so they don’t have to see me falling apart for them.

After the extended family have all departed LT speaks a few words. “It has to be tonight,” she squeaks. "It has to be tonight," and The Daughter winces and hides her face.

“It’s not time,” everyone says. But I wonder about that. It sure looks like it’s time. What is left for her? And what is left of her? She won’t eat or drink or open her eyes – except once she becomes animated: She raises her hands, goes rigid and barks, “I want Monica!” Monica is a friend and a nursing student who has visited earlier in the day and will return tomorrow. It’s late in the evening and we have been trying to dissuade LT from these feeble repeated demands to see Monica.

Finally I am alone with LT. Perhaps I will stay the night. But then Monica arrives with her mom. Someone relented and texted her and she came. She holds LT’s hand.

“Okay,” says LT. “Let’s get on with it.” And we then realize the significance. But Monica cannot provide the desired assistance. Merciful it might be, but it’s still called murder in the Magnificent Wisdom of the Law. There is no machine to unplug. Only strong narcotics.

LT finally sleeps. Monica and the duty nurses are happy with her breathing and her colour, and assure that she will sleep well and survive the night. So I go home for some rest and return early this morning. Others follow. The sun is out today, having lived to see another day, and so have we all, except that LT has lived to lie in bed and not see it.

What do you see instead behind your eyelids, sweet friend? What strange realms have drugs and decay painted in your private mind? I hope that it's some adventure. I hope that this ragged remnant of life is somehow worth hanging on to.  

The price for peace

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Good now that you’re here.” She wastes no time before exerting pressure. I know I’m the last visitor of the day. She won’t want me to leave.

I choose the visitor chair with no arms on it and don’t remain for long. She wants us arranged on the bed, side by side so that I can hold her and rub her back and such. I immediately regret it. I don’t want this level of intimacy with her, and now I’ve set an unhealthy precedent. Now I’ll loathe to come back again and face the unenviable choice of unwelcome intimacy versus an abandonment/anxiety attack reaction should I decline. The more she demands the more she alienates. Bad all around.

She reminds me she’s dying. She says she’s going home Monday (I doubt it). She tells the tale of the cancer-sick man who survived because all his friends and family put their lives on hold and stayed with him 24/7 and pulled him through. I’m a little skeptical. Pretty sure cancer doesn’t give a rat’s ass if your friends are holding your hand or not.

All she wants is love – or the illusion of love. Somewhere inside she probably perceives the difference and is willing to settle for the latter. But the constant demands erode lovability.

“Stay,” she wheezes breathlessly, “’Til midnight.” How real is she being? As always I don’t know. As always I am caught between mercy and sticking to my principles – which all boils down to: blind compassion versus genuine compassion. This night I am strong and tell her I must go and why, and that I will be thinking about her and how to be helpful to her.  

The next night there is an inner-circle meeting. The Liberal Theologian’s daughter; my other housemate, is the key participant. She hasn’t felt like a daughter for a long time now; more a constant nurse. She’s a sleepless estranged grieving wreck at twenty-four years old, and I haven’t been shy to point that out to people. Her girlfriend is there. We’d had a one-on-one prior to the meeting, solidifying our commitments as protectors of The Daughter.

LT’s best of friends are there: Dog Whisperer and Aqualad’s other mom, the Earth Writer. And the Priest Next Door is there and the Psychologist Next Door. Both of them speak eloquently. There words are a great comfort. And Dog Whisperer speaks passionately from a place of shared experience. She cared for the dying as a young woman too and paid tremendous costs which still she can’t escape.

I am greatly relieved to find that everyone shares my views about LT’s anxieties, fears, control issues and special brand of neediness. Some of my guilt concerning my own dark suspiciousness towards a terminally ill woman is beginning to evaporate.

We have branded ourselves the support group for The Daughter. And if necessary we will help her stand against the Circle at Large: LT’s other friends and extended family – should they take up a call to arms from LT and rally for a 24/7 home-care solution, which our little alliance is dead set against.

The next day there is a meeting between doctors and key parties from the inner and outer circles. Home-care is rejected. Hospice is the destination. And the prognosis has devolved:

“We’re looking at weeks,” says the oncologist, “Not months.”

I still can’t get my head around this; why this transparency is so welcome. Who, reading this, would wish to know, right now, their date of expiry? I can’t imagine you would. So why thrust it upon the terminal, I sometimes wonder. Why not let them wake each day unburdened by ticking time clocks? Yes I know all the practical reasons and I know that in the big picture, how critical such financial matters are not. It surprises me, is all. What are the ill thinking when they ask, how much time? Are they just praying for a nice big number? Is it a regret every time; to get the answer they gambled against?

Now that the time-frame has changed the math becomes interesting for me. If we’re talking weeks, then I could conceivably commit to weekend-only duty for a short while and so not be on-call, and pull 18 hours a day, Monday to Friday for LT, taking the lion’s share of care-giving coverage. Then we just need a couple of sisters and a couple old friends to each spend a weekend with LT. The library room could be converted to a guest room without considerable difficulty. And then five others to commit to a weekday evening each week; while I sleep. And The Daughter doesn’t have to partake at all. She can get on with being daughter.

I take these thoughts to Dog Whisperer. She and Earth Writer and Aqualad have been such a magnificent help and comfort to me this last month, it is astounding their impact on my life, especially of late. Not just their love and their hugs but their kind ears and wisdom have so reduced such otherwise lengthy internal mental processes. They have helped me cut to the hearts of the matters with every issue and spared me so much mental math, letting me find peace so much sooner. I love them to no end. I’d put my life on the line for any of them.

Of course Dog Whisper is more or less horrified at my ponderings and eager to derail my train of thought. The hospice is the better place for many reasons. She is tearful in her rebuttals, as I am tearful in my persistence that I must go through this exercise for my own sake. I have to know that I am not letting someone down in their greatest time of need, out of my own selfishness. I have to know that I have not been rationalizing; if I could make a difference.

I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

- Etienne de Grellet

Friday I visit LT and discover that she can barely manage a short walk with me and her walker. Such a struggle that I wonder was it her last walk; if its wheelchairs from now on. She talks of great plans for us. She wants to finish editing the remaining drafts of her fantasy saga. Only the last two books remain unpublished. And she wants to finish the late addition to the series; a supplemental novel, half-finished. And she wants to finish the murder mystery novel too and she wants my help with these things. And I am on board with that. Yes, I will help! But we try to talk about this for an hour and accomplish nothing. She can never complete a single thought without slipping into a vegetative state. I realize that none of this will happen. She is mentally breaking down from the cancer and the drugs. The reality is: the final books of the series will receive cursory edits from a small committee including myself, and published posthumously.

I fear that even “weeks” is optimistic. I feel like she is slipping daily. I really hope I’m wrong. The blessing is that all my former concerns have evaporated and I am truly at ease with her. There are suddenly no boundary issues. She doesn’t ask for hugs but I give them because I want to. It seems like the drugs or deterioration have left her mentality transparent. Gone are my reservations about control issues. I am comfortable, without having to shield my higher principles (or was it an ego thing all along; fear of being controlled?). She has become more fully lovable. In a sense she may get what she wanted all along, but at so terrible a price.

“Going down,” states the elevator voice with flat eloquence. So we are. I realize as I descend that this will be perhaps my most intimate dealings with death. Five grandparents were sad to lose; truly, but that is what all grandparents must do. Close friends; not so much. Not in my experience so far. I think about Biodad’s departure. That might have been intimate had we not so fully alienated each other well before or had I not fucked up a possible reunion.

The elevator door opens and there through the windows I see the other wing; the old bricks of the original section of hospital, once called Henderson. It was there I entered this world, born of Biodad’s mischief. I suppose I am grateful for that.

All the world's a stage

The Liberal Theologian is back in hospital again; the cancer centre, and as usual everything is a big unknown. Is this just treatment for side-effects of a multitude of medications or have we gone to DEFCON 2?

Her oncologist has now taken full control of all things medical. All decisions must flow through him. Is that a bad sign?

As always I feel handcuffed. I had picked out a role for myself: on the practical side: meal prep whenever possible, and on the emotional side: a daily coach and cheerleader to encourage her to focus on healthy perspectives, like appreciating the daily miracles of our existence and getting the most out of each living day.

But every day there seems no opportunity for opportunity. She succumbs to breathlessness and fatigue and relies on her oxygen tank. She gives energy to receiving PSW visits and nurse visits and receives her meals from her roster of supporting family and friends and then has nothing left in the gas tank, or else just enough to organize a press release or to at least discuss the topic. As a major extrovert she insists that all her closest friends and family know every detail of her ordeal at all times.  And some of us do want to know. For others it’s too much.

As a former control freak I have an excellent radar for my control freak brothers and sisters and I love them for their suffering and I know how illegitimate the game is. You manipulate people into behaving the way you “need” them to and then interpret their motivations in a self-flattering way; as if their actions were of their own accord and not contrived by yourself. It’s double-think and it’s a terrible game and a terrible empty way to waste your time, especially if you have little time left.

It’s an attempt to create the illusion of incoming love and it’s twisted, I know. And the ironic thing is: if you’re one of the lucky few to defeat – or tame - the appropriate treacherous instincts and to embrace the reality of yourself and the reality of those around you and to understand the genuine beauty of that which you formally feared, you lose that presumed need for inbound love (and/or your various illusory needs), but the very process of becoming real makes you lovable. So you only get what you wanted after you don’t particularly want it anymore! In my case I gained much respect only after I lost most of my appreciation for respect.

I know what the Liberal Theologian wants more than anything in the world. It’s a specific kind of relationship. And I know because she tells me and she tells no one else in her ‘circle’ which is an effective burden on me. Like most people, she views relationships like a job posting. Where is that one special person with all of these qualifications that are on my list!

But there are few-to-nil applicants when you’re in a cancer centre. I’m concerned that facing mortality has perhaps not prompted her to look for any breakthrough in herself; has not prompted her to soul-search or look inward, but perhaps only strengthened her resolve to get the relationship she wants but in surrogate form; from all of her friends. And this, if it’s true, is troubling for too many reasons to go into here and now.

I am concerned, wondering this: if all of this apparent suffering is not entirely deterioration from cancer, and that some degree of relief is forthcoming, will the Liberal Theologian acknowledge that relief and start to fight, and become a mentally-healthy participant in life for what period of time she can, or will she instead remain in distress mode, focused on receiving her special brand of love, and never fully experience the rewards she might imagine; might be counting on, because some semi-conscious part of her knows the evidence is suspect.  

Sometimes I tell myself, just give her what she wants! It’s too late for her to experience some kind of epiphany! Give her what she thinks she wants; it’ll be a mercy. But in the back of my mind: what if she lives a long time and I’ve committed to something I can’t sustain?

In the moment, it becomes difficult to surrender to what seems like game-playing (though I don’t presume to judge). I spend way way too much time in this society being half-asleep, tolerating the games that go on around me and are inflicted on me because I’ve yet to summon the necessary fortitude or savvy for steering people away from the games and toward reality as I feel my duty demands. And this wears me down.  Every day it wears me down, and now it has intensified with this daily circumstance. So now I feel detached from someone I truly care about.

I’m looking for answers. I presume they lay inside myself.

A good use of time

Jazz Lion visited Saturday night. We had Shawarma and Flying Monkeys and hung out in my room from six in the evening until four in the morning.

We looked at his menu of personal services: drum circles, vision quests, instrument therapy, vibroacoustic healing, brainwave entrainment, music production, live music, and lessons in music theory, performance, production and composition - to name just a few. I will do some 'marketing' writing for him in exchange for services.

He put together a binaural beats brainwave entrainment track for me to regularly absorb; subsonic pulse patterns to relegate my brainwaves for optimal blood pressure recovery. Sounds like voodoo but Harvard and M.I.T. are among those behind the research.

We talked about his getting roughed up and injured to the point of income loss (permanent, I wonder?) by the police and healthcare goons for his being polite but not quick enough to cooperate with psyche ward internment process for the authorities' liking, after they received a tip that he may be suicidal (he's not) because he texted his just-come-ex girlfriend "Whatever - see you in heaven." Apparently if you think someone is suicidal, you can best help them by beating them up so that they can't perform their livelihood. That's how they feel the love, apparently.

Watch out for the long arm of the law, folks. There's a fist at the end.

We talked about the Liberal Theologian's cancer. We talked about directional love versus all-emanating lovingness, and generous love versus selfish love. We talked about the illusory nature of anger and other emotions. We talked about truth and its non-applicability in our society. We talked about dreams, India, fatherhood, latent paternal instinct, the anatomy of relationships and the validity of different approaches to relationships. We talked about his music and mine and Neo's music and Senegal Astroturf's music. We talked about general phenomena of vibration and its effects on us. We talked about the psychedelic experience; especially DMT which he recommends for me personally. I'm hesitant, not being a smoker.

We talked about heartbreak, discipline, repetition, the cosmic perspective, alchemy and the desire to vanish from this society; something we're both acquainted with. We talked about much and ten hours dried up in a hurry.

When I had found out that Liberal Theologian was finally coming out of the hospital on Friday I offered to cancel Jazz's visit but she wouldn't have it. It's very unfortunate that she felt, last-minute, that she could not take part in the visit. Jazz, as I have told him, is a very important spirit in this world, and a very important voice in this world. I have no wish to keep him to myself.

As for L.T.: I'd like nothing more than to see her living life to the fullest; making the most of each day. Saturday night there was a marvelous opportunity for her that did not happen.

*Flying Monkeys is beer.

Guesses

She's so upset she's trembling; shaking actually. She says she doesn't know what she wants. She's crying. The plate of beef and rice on her lap is shaking.

I don't know what you want. I don't know how to help you.

But I guess it's not about the food or the visitor who I've just sent down to my room, or the other two visitors who are about to arrive with a gift, and can they stay or should they go.

I guess its just all too much; being told you're out of luck and running out of time. I suppose that if you surrender all responsibility and capability and just shrink back into your little baby soul, then the big bad problem becomes irrelevant. If you render yourself helpless and throw yourself to the mercy of others, that they might take care of you and make your decisions for you, then all the problems, and the problem become theirs to deal with, and you are free. You have escaped.

Except of course, this would be a game, wouldn't it? Some temporary defense, I guess. How, truly, to forget that you are dying and that you are afraid?

Knocked down

The Thoughtful Educator came to town for a lunch date and it was great to see him and very sobering to hear how his rare medical conditions are keeping him from the work he loves. I remember how he half-tricked me into volunteering at his school five years ago and how unexpected the experience was. How the kids were not annoying and the teachers so dedicated and so nurturing and the strong sense of community which I never sensed in my grade school as a kid.

But mostly I remember how T.E, engaged with the kids in such a delightful manner, so approachable and fun, and with difficult matters: how sensitive and respectful. How he always seemed to know exactly how to handle any situation; how precisely to balance priorities. How he empowered the students and how he coached and led and challenged the teachers with intelligence, wisdom and humor. And how uniformly he was loved and respected by students and teachers alike.

To see him removed from an environment where he so brilliantly thrived and made such a positive difference to others' lives, is - a sad thing. If he doesn't make it back, I pray that he finds another effective outlet for that brilliance.

The Liberal Theologian is back home. She arrived today with hospital bed and oxygen tanks and managed to stay up until I got home from my evening shift. We hugged for a long time and held hands and I smiled with my mouth and so did she and we tried not to cry too much.

It hurts to see good people knocked down.

But I made a vow to make 2015 a celebration of life and I aim to keep it. The universe is mainly ugly. Let's face it. But people, for all our faults, and our struggle to be good when it's really hard to be, are just plain beautiful.

Yes. You are. So there.  

Now or never, once again.

A colourful sunshiny landscape constructed primarily of Smarties candies with vague cartoony characters leaping around and diving into colourful pools. A giant mouth - the one from the Scream mask, perhaps. moving forward through a dark tunnel, threatening to consume everything in its path. What else? That's all I can remember. I was sleep deprived today, as usual lately, and so I experienced many waking dreams which I call dreamettes. They're always lightning quick. Do other people get those? I presume you do. Though if you don't experience sleep deprivation then they probably don't register consciously.

I haven't slept well for a couple weeks due to illness, which struck about the same time I found out that the Liberal Theologian has not triumphantly defeated her cancer after all. Wave One took a beating from the chemo, surgery and radiation, but here's a surprise second wave and Wave Two is - What can I say? Wave Two will not take a beating. Docs will do what they can to slow it down. My friend and excellent housemate will suffer until the end. And I can't do a thing to stop it.

The nice thing about sleep deprivation is that the brain doesn't function very well so it's rather easy to mentally procrastinate. My brain doesn't want to deal with this business right now and so it doesn't. L.T. has been in the hospital the whole time and I can't visit for all the coughing so... no pressure to deal with it.

She could finally be home tomorrow. So I'll have to start dealing with it, which is good. There are a lot of people in my life right now that I need to be strong for. Like Dog Whisperer says. I have to look after myself first, if I'm gonna be useful to others. She's right of course. When the cabin depressurizes, it's your mask before your child's. I know that. And that means taking care of my health. And that's gonna be a lot of work.

I can't take any more holidays from life. Do I have what it takes to get this train back on the rails? I have serious doubts. I have a bad record.

One step at a time? I need a plan. And I need inspiration. Here's a good sign maybe: Neo, World Citizen, Jazz Lion and the Thoughtful Educator have all come out of the woodwork just lately, wanting to get together. Good timing guys. I had one date, scheduled two more and expect to see Neo some time soon. And Dog Whisperer was very generous with her time tonight. I've been receiving wise advice lately. And the poets speak to me too. Discipline, they say. Not my strong suit. But I'm blessed with the finest associates; these and others. My love for them is really the only thing that keeps me in the game. And if I ever start winning, it will be to their credit.