My left leg gave me some grief during the night. Is this improvement or the beginning of the end? That's always the question as a new pain or a reoccurring pain happens. Will I need to get a THR soon? Only time will tell. I don't get why I should get it now -just in case. Since the end of September, the pain I've been experiencing has been on the right side of my body, on the top of my right hip, and in my right shoulder, neck, and head. This sounds to me more like something to do with my spinal curvature than my left hip. But we'll see.
I still had the residue from the morning nightmare; I missed Mike. I sat through most of the Mass, not following the up/down ritual. It's all good. Like Bikram, the Mass is a place where you can follow your own needs as long as you're not downright disruptive. As I think of it, if you a crying baby, you can also disrupt.
When I got home, I had a splitting headache. People used to ask me if I got migraines. No. I rarely had headaches. Boy, there has ever been a change; my head frequently hurts. I still believe that my neck and the plates in my head are shifting. Will they move successfully at 79, or are they fixed in place? Can you teach the skull of an old dog new alignment? We'll see, won't we?
Shivani and Sidney were out when I came home. I lay on the couch and read the NY Times from last week and started this week's. Sidney wanted to play outside. Now that I've taught him that gadget for playing with water, he wants to do it all the time. Shivani tried to help me get the new harness on Elsa. I wanted her to switch to the harness from the collar because when she pulls, she chokes. We weren't successful, but Elsa rested in my arms, lying on her back. She had lots of little dreads in her belly hairs. She is being groomed on Wednesday. I cut out a few of them. I figured I'd be gentler than the groomer. Of course, I may have nipped her, which the groomer would not do. After a while, we just sat together, enjoying each other. She has warmed up to me and spends time with me just for the pleasure of it, much the way Mike did. She not exactly a substitute, but she's a hell of a lot better than nothing—something to pour love into.
I called Carol Z., my friend in Maryland. She and John had called me last week to wish me a happy birthday. A week early. Then I was two days late for her birthday. I told them the story of the car accident on Thanksgiving day. They got a good laugh, mostly about the hug in the middle of a busy intersection. Carol said that the cars behind us must have been honking. Actually, no. No one made a peep. It would be weird anywhere else, but it's Hawaii. Thank God.
Shivani put Sidney for a nap around 3 pm. I didn't hear a peep from him for hours. I worked on the blog and the book and hung up one photograph and took a few more out of the library, and placed them on a table in the closet area. Sidney slept so long, I started to get worried. When I checked, I saw that his face wasn't buried under some pillow, and, being the considerate child he is, he moved, assuring me that he was still alive. He was so quiet that I had repeated thoughts about walking Elsa and had to remind myself that I couldn't just walk out on a 2-year old.
Shivani came home around 6 pm. When Sidney heard her voice, he roused himself. She brought home poke from Huggo's, the best. I walked Elsa, but only to do her business. I think I've finally caught the cold that these two have had since they arrived. What a surprise! Also, I have this headache—great combination, but not debilitating like that backache I had.
I did some work on chapter 1 today. Shivani asked me to write about how this process is different from phonics, which most people are familiar with. I'll mail her the chapter tomorrow while she's in the air.
Musings:
Again, I am struck by how hard it is to remember Mike and who he was in my life. There was no single thing that Mike did for me or was for me that I am missing. He cooked dinners, but I'm not much of an eater. I eat to live; I don't live to eat as he did. He cooked for the Russian army with each meal. As he got sicker, he became more conservative in his quantities. He would cook one or two large meals, and we would do leftovers, which I was perfectly happy with. We had very little waste. In the bad old days, when we were still living in Princeton, an adolescent student would check out my frig for something to eat. He found lots of containers of food that had seen better days. He said, "It was a refrigerator com compositor. "
Mike was my 'husband,' but my identity as his 'wife' wasn't that strong. He was mainly my life partner, something he 'did 'every day rather than something he 'was' in relation to me in the broader community. That doesn't mean that there weren't moments when I would say, "You know my husband. He's the deacon at church." But then I was just proud of him. It wasn't that his glory spread to me. I was proud to be with him. I don't know how to tease those two concepts apart with words, but they are very different. I was very proud of him. He was a man of high integrity. His views sometimes clashed with others, and they thought otherwise, but he was consistent with his own values, even if it meant alienating people.
I often said to him, "You know the best thing about you?" He would nod. I would say, "You're mine." He loved that. That is not lost, except for my occasional nightmares. Otherwise, he is mine and always will be. If there is a way for him to look out for me from his current vantage point, he is and will always do so.
But back to the more significant issue. It is hard for me to remember him, not because I don't want to but because there isn't a single image or act to hang on to. If someone is a person in your life rather than a single function, they're different every day. There was a line from T.S. Elliott's play, The Cocktail Party, "Always greet your loved ones as strangers every day." (I just checked the quote. Not even close, but the sentiment is the same.) I used to interpret that to mean that there is always something new to discover. But now I think it just that the people we spend so much time with and who serve so many functions in our lives are just different every moment.
If I had a fixed image of Mike in my mind, I might actually not recognize him if he came in with a different haircut, a different mood, even different clothes. Some people have this neurological problem for whom this is true. I knew so many, many different faces of Mike's, so many. I knew so many, many different, and ordinary moments with Mike. There is no single one I can remember.
I had a contrasting experience as I was thinking about this today. My niece Shivani has proven to be just what I'm looking for to help me edit my book to be more readable to a greater audience. She is the perfect person in so many ways. I can't believe my good luck. But, as I was thinking about losing people today, I realized that if I lost her there would be a different kind of grief – right now. I value Shivani as a person. I love spending time with her. As with Mike, we share interests and values and can laugh together. That remains transient, uncapturable. But her function as my editor does not. It's fixed. She's the only one who has responded to my request to read my book to see if it makes sense. If I lose her, it will be a different kind of grief. It will be specific.
Now Mike was the only one for me in so many ways. I can't think of replacing him. I don't know if I ever will. But no one thing stands out. It was all good to fantastic. I don't even understand what I'm trying to say. Maybe it's that I really don't 'need' him. These last few years have been sheer gravy. All wonderful, delightful but not necessary for my survival psychologically or spiritually no less physically. Also, it should be noted that I have the most fantastic support system in the world. I'm not just referring to friends and the Bikram and church communities; I am referring to all of Hawaii. The wonderful aloha spirit that makes it possible for me to stand in the middle of a major intersection hugging a sixty-year-old man I've never seen before in my life after a fender bender with cars lined up behind us and no one was honking their horn. The whole thing was so Hawaii.
I guess the one thing Mike offered me is the knowledge that he liked, loved, and delighted in me after 45 years together. I think my mother lied to me when she insisted that no one liked me except her. But that sound in my head still haunts me enough to generate nightmares and make me sad. As I typed this, there is still something inside of me that whispers, "I hope he really liked me." That is my greatest sadness. That doubt. After all, if he really liked me, why did he leave?
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