I think I climbed up the far side of this week's ditch today.
We did not get outside, but I felt N was justified in thinking I tend to post only the 'mean or pained' pictures, so here's a more pleasant one from yesterday's wander. N pointed it out, and I think I can see the fullness of the chemo under my face.
She notices it not when they give it to me, but when I am feeling it, which makes sense, and I know the odds are gonna be she's right. When I look in the mirror I am seeing fears or the past or just kind of blank 'where are you?' look, so I am not currently the best source of info on that front. Sometimes I just stare for a minute and think 'wow, you don't look that sick. But you are.'
I think I see what she means. And I think it may be less right now. That, maybe, I can feel.
Smuggled--but cleared by N and the Drs, so I guess the smuggling isn't all that super-spy--food from the outside world helped. Mom and Jim are here and that means chicken and rice, a dish apparently son-approved across the country, if emails from an aunt are to be believed.
And Shepherd's pie from cousins--which is apparently the least Jewish food ever. Though Jim said that could be easily rectified with enough horseradish.
That may actually be a universal truth.
But the grey and the weighted won most of he first half of the day anyway. Things started to kind of clear out the way the clouds move out of the way in the Simpsons intro somewhere in the mid afternoon.
I am learning that I cannot predict the when, but sort of the what. The days of grey came at a different pace, came faster, last week, and were done sooner. This week I got Wednesday off, but Thursday was, looking at it from close by, worse, and so was Friday. Maybe in the aggregate they were not as bad, but tripping me up from farther out was a nasty trick. One I hope to have learned from.
But the what, I am understanding. One of the days of grey will be like lying in a shallow bath as it cools. If you don't make the move to get out, you will just stay down there, nose above water and everything else submerged and slowly cooling, slowly getting worse, slowly giving in.
In the morning you can't beat it. I did my mile as quick as I could and was swallowed by sleep again.
But as the day wears, if you can get out from under, get above that line, force yourself to rise a little above it, even to just go fill your water bottle or make yourself sit up and talk to your family, it pays dividends.
Effort begets effort begets a better level. A higher level.
And then you climb a bit from there.
It's the far side of the ditch. Just grab a root. Haul yourself up a few inches. Pant. Pant. Do it again.
Left foot. Right foot. Repeat.
In those early hours, when I was just barely above the line, it was so quiet, because I wasn't letting anything in.
Rooms speak and whisper. Crocs squeek by.
I learned at some point in the dead of last night that the first two notes the toilet makes when I flush it are the same two notes that open "Son of a Preacher Man." You know, that sad, bent first double note that tells you the song will be about loss?
A workman left a sweatshirt on the building project we can see from the northernmost lounge, the one in the elderly section. It's been there for more than a week now, fluttering and wet through at least one storm. I wonder if he'll come back for it.
These mechanical bull beds yearn to be together, like my uncle's draft horses. They work their traces next to each other, wheezing and rolling us undead through our nights, drawing our sweat and embracing our farts.
When my neighbor's bed draws in air to slide him around, I know in my half-sleep that I am next. They cycle together, then apart, then together, thrumming to each other, wheezing a little, then thrumming again.
Good night.
