I’d like to thank you regular readers, first off…It was precisely a decade ago that Chris Hill plopped me down at a table to begin this WordPress blog. In those days it was free, but since about 2011 I’ve had to pay to keep ads off.
It’s in vain that I protect you from ads, since the rest of your day is saturated with them, but I like to think it’s a small plus.
Mark Twain: “Write without pay until someone offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this as a sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for.”
And if the candidate has to PAY to write (like me) then….sawing wood, and dumpster diving is what she was intended for.
Daily life here at our Asylum for Two is pretty nice, especially when I reflect on the trauma of so many people’s lives. The garden blooms. Charlie can take a walk on his own and usually not get lost. He can dress himself. He can eat without help. I could even leave food for him to heat..he’s not the avid vegetable chopper of yore, but he doesn’t miss that. What he misses is Touching Metal. His hands are ‘butterfingers’ (this is the too-frequent epithet he flings at his nerve-damaged digits). His feet don’t coordinate enough to skip, though I coach him on that. He can see a LITTLE BIT, but not enough to ride a bicycle alone safely (I’ve let him do it unsafely, and it’s not a good idea).
We are OK, and going to Be Here Now, since that was what fate delivered in September 2015.
. With an RSS feed
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Now that we’ve lived through a third of a year, we understand better that the healing curve is nice and Malthusian at first…Charlie went from a curled up ball with arms pressed to his heart (I think this is a sign of a really bad brain injury, according to the author of “Over My Head”) to a guy who can, with careful supervision, walk about 4 miles with small ‘balance disturbances’ and stumbles. He still doesn’t have a clue where he is–on which trail, how far, etc. Will the ‘inner compass return?
I discovered an unfortunate fact: I’ve become my sharp-tongued, overworked mother Doreen. She had six ‘accidents’*, one after the other, and we little Phelans were just so terribly inconvenient!
Mom and Dad were party animals, and we felt the sting of their resentful ‘parenting’ too often.
So I bark : “AUUGH!! WATCH your RIGHT FOOT–it’s too close to the trail’s edge” . I had chosen a single track trail up behind Deer Park School to hear all the little rills roaring down Bald Hill.
“I’ll be careful. Sorry”.
I cringe when I hear Charlie say “sorry”.
It’s ME who should be sorry for being shrill.
Yesterday we got in 90 minutes of walking, cleverly timed between rainstorms. Life is good. It’s also not-so-great. Then it turns great again.
Our friend R. M. lost two rellies this week. Our other friend Nick F. brought us a feast of roast bird, potato, brown rice and veggies…and withdrew politely to allow Charlie that Alone Moment that his royal Shyness so patiently awaits.
This is in direct conflict for my wish for MORE people to visit….my battery gets charged by visits, while his battery drains away ….Is this TMI?
I believe one of the toughest things for Mr. Do-it-Yourself-Depend-On-No-One (so you won’t have to engage socially) is the fact that now, since he’s ‘down’, he must allow his mechanically worthless wife to seek assistance around Off Hand Manor. Our 60 yr old shingled shack, like any home, requires constant vigilance…today was typical: a leak from the woodstove flue. Somehow the ‘hurricane cap’ allows rain to drip right down from the roof to the floor. It is black and creosote-pungent. It might not be doing the unpolished hardwood floor any favor.
I discovered all that, and a wet floor just when we were celebrating the first day with no doctor’s appointments in about 3 weeks….and now, partway thru making oatmeal, I had to change gears into “supplicant of support “, when I’d been such a helpful cook and housekeeper, chauffeuse and bed-warmer.
Mike Schultz came to the rescue (he and Scott Bowman are the only guys who wear as many hats , skill-wise, as Charlie).
By three this afternoon, there was enough slack in the sched that I could get out on my road bike and catch 2 hrs of fresh air, and upon return, Nick Fain was carrying a roast bird and pile of organic roast veggies, plus a bottle of rouge under his arm…so he spared me the hour’s dinner prep. We didn’t know what to do with the extra time so I had Charlie pen one of his patented thank you notes. He’s able to write, but unable to read. Must learn more about this “pure alexia” condition, where somehow part of the brain can generate legible (if badly spelled) text, but in no way can it be re-read. It’s like, as soon as it’s on the page, a mysterious substance scrambles it, and the only way Charlie can read it is to put a finger on a letter, then look it up on the 26 letter alphabet on a plastic sheet that he keeps at the dinner table to ‘decode’ the occasional word. Each word takes about ten minutes to de-cipher. It’s maddening, and he’s trying to be patient, but both of us pray that at some point, a ‘patch cord’ will allow free interplay between the writing and the ability (not yet there) to read.
And: don’t get us started about his ruined sight. There is only about 10% of his vision remaining and we don’t know if it will come back. Of course one must be cheerful but er…can we just hurry thru the next 3 yrs to see if the eyesight returns to 50 % or so? Then he could ride a bike (not on pavement but on dirt, where things don’t pull out in front of you suddenly , etc).
Ah…well, this is the day-in-the-life. Tomorrow Robbins Peek the PBP veteran tandemist will take Charlie round the county a little bit…and get him a schosh stronger.
*Irish term for “bundle of joy”