The Year of Magical Thinking

The vortex. Yes, that's exactly what happens in the outside world. Exactly the way Joan Didion's words describe it. Watching Vanessa Redgrave in a benefit performance of "The Year of Magical Thinking" tonight was at times painful, at times terribly insightful but entirely what i was meant to be doing tonight.

One lesson i've learned this fall is that when i do something that someone else suggests, even when i don't want to do it or even if i very much don't feel like doing it, well sometimes that suggestion turns out to be wonderful, extraordinary, uplifting, the very thing i needed. I'm learning to trust my instincts and more importantly to trust the people i love and who love me.
And it only works in that combination. If the love isn't there, the suggestion's outcome isn't nearly as extraordinary. It happened to me with Jes (twice), with Diana, and tonight with E.J. I trusted him and bought the ticket to the benefit performance. And it was extraordinary.

I cried while i was watching it, seated in St. John the Divine. I cried especially on the way home. Past stupid St. Luke's Hospital. My memories not of my mom being there but of her being with me when i was sick there. I passed that long and wide stretch of 120th street between Amsterdam and Broadway. In the cold air i instantly was swept up by the vortex, going back to those nights my mom walked because she couldn't sleep, because she needed night air, or the night (i can't remember the day or month!) when i accompanied her, in her pajamas and coat, walking down to 116th and back, because she was so hot and she couldn't manage to get cool or comfortable. She was sick and weak and she wanted me to let her walk on her own. So i did, staying a few steps behind, watching her as a mother watches a toddler who's just starting to walk. She wasn't so steady on her feet but she walked as fast and as tall as she could. She was so strong and independent and defiant at that moment. Not defiant to me. Defiant to cancer.

She always walked. She always got up and walked. That night when she sprained her ankle in July, when she had cancer but nobody had figured it out yet. In Harlem Hospital in early October when she walked all around her floor attached to her IV stand, and the nurses told me that she'd been dancing for them earlier (because mom was a show-off and loved the attention). She walked all around the 8th floor in Mount Sinai, before the surgery that would start the beginning of the end. (But really when did it begin??) She walked even after the surgery, when the NG tube and the catheter were removed. She walked around the 10th floor at New York-Cornell, the ACE unit. She needed help but holding onto her IV or onto my arm, she walked as far as she wanted to go, further than i thought we should. She walked to the "salita," the, what did they call it? Visitor's room? It was the shortest distance from any of those other hospital floors where she had walked before. But this was the sickest she had ever been. She wrapped her red pashmina around her face and neck, looking like a bedouin on a journey across the Sahara, like she was prepared for it all, and pushed the walker they gave her around the nurse's station, over to the salita. She showed me in fact how far she liked to walk, to the other side of that floor. I think this was the 5th floor now. Now i remember that day i walked with her and she held onto the rails that line the walls and she showed me how she exercised. And she started doing something akin to bar exercises in ballet! I laughed and laughed and looked around to see if anybody was watching my mom show me her bar exercises. I'd never seen her do that in my entire life. She always found a way to make me laugh. Here she was showing me her ballet moves (always beautiful hands), eventually losing her balance (i yelled at her, gently, but by force of habit), within days of choosing hospice at home (i can't remember if this was before or after). She never wanted to stop dancing. She danced until she could no longer. She walked until she could no longer.

My mom got out of her hospital bed, in her room at home, in the middle of the night, walked to the living room where my aunt was staying, and got into bed with her. She got out of her hospital bed when Diane, the nurse, was in the living room talking with me, and walked to where we were, sat down, crossed her legs into a semi-Lotus position, as if to say, i'm still here. There were days when she hardly moved or talked. Then the next day she'd walk along the hallway, holding onto the wall, walking to where the voices were in the living room. She walked in the outside hallway, with her walker, in her white velour robe that i got her at Daffy's, trying to make it all the way down and back twice. She seemed to believe that if she pushed herself to exercise, to move her legs, then she would get stronger. She was so worried about the fact that walking was so difficult for her. Two days before she died she asked Diane why her legs felt so heavy and why she felt so tired. I translated the question to Diane and looked at her for an answer. She just looked at me, as if to say, what is there to say? The eventual answer was because my mom was so thin, it made her weak. I think that's what we told her. Whatever it was we told her, she nodded and said, "ohhhh." I think she just wanted an answer. None of this made any sense to her, as it didn't make any sense to me, because it just didn't make sense. How could she actually get cancer and die? This was not in our life plan.
I remember when Dr. - how could i forget his name? Why do i forget these things that made up all of my molecules for so many months? Dr. Cohen, i looked it up in my phone. When Dr. Cohen suggested stopping chemo and starting hospice, (what room was that? it was after the rectal bleeding that took us to the ER for the 4th time, after he stood in that room in his tshirt and jeans, having come to see mom while he was off duty, after he stood there and told mom that he didn't think she was at the end and we could pursue chemo; maybe in his office? maybe after the Tenkhoff catheter was attached?) i remember that my mom asked, without hesitation and with the utmost calm, "but doesn't that mean that the cancer will grow?" Dr. Cohen seemed a teeny bit surprised. She seemed like a child asking this question, but what more important question could there be? "Yes, it does mean the cancer grows." She was no dummy, my mom. She couldn't always communicate directly with those doctors, needed me to translate, but she always understood what was happening and needed to understand. A few minutes later she said to us, "okay yes let's stop the chemo. Maybe when i regain my strength we can try again."
She was so tired and so sick. I still don't know how much she knew. I mean, why did she always tell people she was going to get better? Why did she always say she had faith that she would beat this? I know she knew she was going to die, but then, i don't know. She and i never talked about it except one day when i asked her if she knew that i would be okay, that my family would take care of me. I think she said yes or nodded. I didn't say, "I'll be okay when you die." I just said, "you know i'll be okay, right?" I never said, "i'm okay with you dying, mom." I just said, "I want you to be fine, i don't want you to suffer anymore."

As i was walking onto Broadway, rounding 120th street, i noticed that i was clutching the packet of Kleenex in my pocket. I suddenly had a sense memory of holding someone's hand in my pocket. Was it my mom and me walking outside of the hospital? Me holding her hand in her pocket or mine? In our identical black down winter coats? Was it me holding my aunt's hand in my pocket? Did one of us not have gloves and that's why we were holding onto each other for warmth? And i cried, and i wished that i could hold my mother's hand. I wished that she could hold my hand.

Part of me is upset that i can no longer remember every single detail, date, name, medical term, time of day, location, etc. Part of me feels like there are so many terrible memories, with so many terrible parts to them, that maybe it's fortunate that i don't remember everything.

I know i'm definitely going to get my own copy of "The Year of Magical Thinking." Tonight i found so much comfort in hearing someone describe their grief, rawness and irrationality at the horror of it all. Talking to someone who knows how it is has been my saving grace this year. And hearing someone talk about exactly how i felt and still feel, it helps me to not feel alone. And that's so important.

I knew i needed to write a lot, i haven't written for days, so i'm glad tonight i got the chance/urge/inspiration. I was going to do my homework for the workshop. Bracing for the Winter. Why I'm Dressing Up for Halloween This Year. These are the titles i was toying with. I guess i'll have to finish tomorrow. I'm exhausted. A little bit scared of all the memories to come this winter, but ultimately it feels better to have cried as much as i have while writing this entry.