Ok, I've actually forgotten a bunch of the books that I've read since last we met. So I'll try to recreate at least my thoughts on the few I can remember (I need to write things down sooner).
"Under Heaven" by Guy Gavriel Kay is a rich, deep, quiet meditation on family, war, civilization, and political intrigue. All set in the times of the Tang dynasty in China. It begins with a man who is spending his year of mourning (for his father who was a great general) burying the bones of the dead along the silent shores of a high mountain lake, fighting off the ghosts of the warriors who died in battle. You don't quite know where the story is going until suddenly you are in the middle of epic changes. Guy knows how to tell a story and uses historic details to deepen the tale. Read everything he writes and you won't be disappointed. This is his newest edition and it is spellbinding.
"The Last Light of the Sun" by Guy Gavriel Kay is similar in that it deals in family and myth, but this time it is in the time of Vikings and the early northern European lands. A story of magic and empire building.
"The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi is set in a plausible future land of world-wide floods, genetic crop manipulations, Japanese bio-engineered "windup girls" and an economy where calories are king. I don't think it is quite as good as it thinks it is, repeating words and thoughts a bit too much for my taste, but it signals a writer to watch. If you like near-future fiction, crazed Bangkok streets, and mammoths as engines, you'll enjoy it.
"Black Hills" by Dan Simmons, is a history chasing, heart-breaking, must read. He takes the moment of General Custer's death as a starting point and doesn't end until the world is transformed by a President named Franklin D. Roosevelt. Seen by a Native American child who grows old with the ghost of Custer (among others) looking out of his eyes.
"Horns" by Joe Hill. It’s a playful story about a guy who loses his girlfriend (maybe kills her) and wakes up to discover that he’s got horns coming out of his head and seems to be a bit more devilish than usual. People also can’t seem to notice or remember he has them and everyone tells him their worst thoughts. A journey of discovery ensues. A diversion.
"One Amazing Thing" by Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni is set in the basement office of a building that has just suffered an earthquake. The players were all there to sort out their travel paperwork and come from many different walks of life. As the water rises and hope fails, they each tell a story of one amazing thing that happened in their life. This was a short, simple book. Nicely done.
"The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet" by David Mitchell. I've read other books by David Mitchell and enjoyed them so I thought I'd give this a try. I think it may be his best work. It is set on an island off of Japan during the period where the Dutch were the only foreigners allowed even close to the country. Jacob is a young book keeper charged with documenting corruption at the trading post. But that is just an entry into the closed world and strange kingdom of Japan. The book covers lifetime of intrigues, possible child sacrifices, immortal samurais, and loves lost.
"The Girl Who..." For a long time I resisted this series because it seemed to be everywhere and a bit over-hyped. A friend passed her copy of the first book (Dragon Tattoo) on to me recently and I just finished it. It’s worth the read. The hype is mostly right. This is just plain murder mystery family dynasty journalistic detective work fun.
I just finished the other two in the series and they are equally good (though you get the impression that women have a particularly bad time of things in Sweden than I would have imagined). The ending is bang up good fun. Read all three. Now, of course, I'm in trouble (because the books were all published posthumously and aside from outlines for more they’re all he wrote). So uh, now what?
"The Kingdom Beyond the Waves" by Stephen Hunt is just plain good Victorian-punk alternate world, evil empire, partly underwater, partly far up in the sky, fun. This is the second book in the series (the first being "The Court of the Air.") A nice diversion.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Books, February 2010
Ok, I've got a few books to get through (and a few more that I'll have to post later)
We'll start with Fiction...
"Juliet, Naked" by Nick Hornby is a quick little shot at exploring wasted time, reclusive rock stars, fanatic internet conspiracy theorists followers, and the search for meaning among the aftermath of alcohol infused bed hopping. Classic and very readable Hornby of "High Fidelity" fame.
"The Way of Shadows" by Brent Weeks is book one of a trilogy (the others are: "Shadow's Edge" and cleverly enough, "Beyond the Shadows"). I rarely like fantasy books, but I have to give Mr. Weeks credit, these books are unputdownable and completely diverting. If you'd like to read a dark and brooding adventure in a land where assassins are king, blades speak, battles rage and ancient mysteries slowly unravel, get the trilogy.
"The Sheriff of Yrnameer" by Michael Rubens was a cute (he's a writer for the Daily Show) experiment in sci-fi storytelling. About a future time when Earth is pretty much blown to bits and rogue spacers roam the galaxy. If you want to read a light and playful little romp, go for it, just know I bought it for the cover illustration and am proud to say that I'll keep it for the cover illustration.
"Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami is considered a classic. He's a good writer and this was a very readable and absorbing exploration of Japanese culture and a bit of magical realism.
"Wireless" by Charles Stross was a collection of short stories that were pretty uneven but certainly engaging and exploratory. Nowhere near as good as his novels but I could see how one or two of these stories could easily become a major new work. I think it'd be worth reading to see how his mind works as it crunches through thoughts and dreams and ideas on the way to becoming stories.
"Huge" by James Fuerst is about a little kid that is the reincarnation of Mickey Spillane. Totally a fun book about growing up (a little) and solving mysteries (or at least thinking you're solving mysteries).
"Transition" by Ian Banks looks like a new universe in the making. Typical Banks malevolent and dark humor peppered throughout a story about alternate universes and the enforcement officers who live across worlds holding back catastrophic badness. Love it.
"The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown is another one by Dan Brown. Do I have to say more? Think of it as cotton candy. This time instead of the church he takes on the founding fathers. A good read if you like the same story told over and over again (though it gets a bit strained and was certainly not as good as The DaVinci Code).
"This is Not a Game" by Walter Jon Williams wasn't as good as other musings on the topic (or other Williams books) but it does paint a credible future world and plays with the potential of crowdsourced augmented reality good guys, bad guys, and game designers. Worth reading if you like that sort of thing.
If you like the smell of paint, walking along the Seine and a touch of impressionist mystery, read The Swan Thieves Though not The Historian in terms of scope or vampire fun, she can definitely write. The book explores what it means and meant to be an artist both today and in the early 1900s. It also paints the picture of a man who is single mindedly obsessed and the doctor detective trying to discover the meaning of his patient's paintings. My only reservation is that there isn't much mystery and I was waiting for some kind of twist or turn that never really came (or if it did it was so predictable that I didn't notice).
"Mariposa" by Greg Bear was worth reading if you like slightly futuristic thrillers about insolvent America, overeaching corporations as military replacements, and a sprinkling of smart dust.
"The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers" by Thomas Mullen is pure gold. It is set in the 1930's in the midwest during a time of fast cars, bank robbers, and the newly emerging FBI. The story revolves around the oddly magical ability of two swashbuckling brothers to evade (mostly) death while they try to stay one step ahead of the law and maybe a half a step away from the breadlines.
"Six Suspects" by Vikas Swarup (author of the book that was made into the Slumdog Millionaire movie) is ok, but not great. Basically it starts with the murder of a playboy millionaire spoiled brat and then explores the six people who were all at the party who may have reason to kill him. It isn't a bad conceit but it didn't really feel like there was much mystery or tension.
"Galileo's Dream" wasn’t bad, a mish mash of history (pretty vivid depiction of Galileo’s place and time) and world spanning future hopping many dimensional time traveling trouble making. Kinda confused and anticlimactic but Kim Stanley Robinson is always a good writer and this might have just been a bit of the “reach exceeds grasp” sorta experiment that all good authors have to try. If you like history and sci-fi and ruminations on the nature of human nature, you’ll probably enjoy it. If you want something much deeper in the “history of scientific thinking with a touch of swashbuckling adventure genre” and something that is a bit more finely wrought (though wacky at times because of the author’s playful anachronisms), read the The Baroque Cycle.
If you’ve never read Jess Walters, now would be a good time to start. His new book, The Financial Lives of the Poets is a compact little story about one man’s descent into hell during the financial meltdown. It is funny, sad and hopeful.
Non-Fiction
"A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller is a short exploration of the elements of a good story and how you can think about your life as a story (and how to edit it along the way to guide it to be a better one). There is one particular story about a family who, among other things, decides to invite world leaders over to their house for a sleepover and the richness that springs from that one inciting incident (oh yeah, a good story has a character who wants something (even better if its something good for his life, his family, his community, or the world) and has to overcome obstacles (if you don't fail you aren't really aiming high enough and the best characters know there will be stumbles and falls along the way) to get it, but usually the character is comfortable and like most of us does not want to rock the boat... (so they need an inciting incident to get them moving). Read the book.
"Whatever it Takes" by Paul Tough is a book about Geoffrey Canada's efforts to build the Harlem Children's Zone. If you care at all about education read this book. If you like reading about doing the impossible, read this book. It has heartbreaking passages and inspirational ideas. I saw Geoffrey speak not that long ago and was pleasantly shocked by some of the things he said.
While we don’t burn scientists at the stake quite as often anymore there still is a surplus of Denialism. This book is an interesting screed on the widespread distrust of science and fact. It’s not a perfect book and seems a bit too arrogant at times (the people who should read it would never get past the first chapter), but overall it has some startling and disturbing examples of denial in the face of overwhelming evidence. While finding the link for this book I found another book about truthiness that sounds intriguing. True Enough.
"Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea" by Gary Kinder is the true story of the recovery of a ship filled with gold and other historic artifacts dating back to the American gold rush. Great story of the perils of going to sea, the origins of the gold rush, the amazing efforts of one man and his team to establish a working scientific presence 8-10,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, and the ensuing legal wrangling that followed when they discovered the most gold ever found in a shipwreck. A completely wonderful adventure even more fun because it really happened. One of the best elements of the book (and really the core of the story) is the main character. Tommy (Harvey) Thompson is a template for the idea of creativity, invention, perseverance, and the scientific method. This is a story about doing what all the experts thought was impossible. A must read.
Movies...
"ZombieLand" rocks.
Music...
Massive Attack's new album is deep and wonderful. Buy Heligoland now.
We'll start with Fiction...
"Juliet, Naked" by Nick Hornby is a quick little shot at exploring wasted time, reclusive rock stars, fanatic internet conspiracy theorists followers, and the search for meaning among the aftermath of alcohol infused bed hopping. Classic and very readable Hornby of "High Fidelity" fame.
"The Way of Shadows" by Brent Weeks is book one of a trilogy (the others are: "Shadow's Edge" and cleverly enough, "Beyond the Shadows"). I rarely like fantasy books, but I have to give Mr. Weeks credit, these books are unputdownable and completely diverting. If you'd like to read a dark and brooding adventure in a land where assassins are king, blades speak, battles rage and ancient mysteries slowly unravel, get the trilogy.
"The Sheriff of Yrnameer" by Michael Rubens was a cute (he's a writer for the Daily Show) experiment in sci-fi storytelling. About a future time when Earth is pretty much blown to bits and rogue spacers roam the galaxy. If you want to read a light and playful little romp, go for it, just know I bought it for the cover illustration and am proud to say that I'll keep it for the cover illustration.
"Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami is considered a classic. He's a good writer and this was a very readable and absorbing exploration of Japanese culture and a bit of magical realism.
"Wireless" by Charles Stross was a collection of short stories that were pretty uneven but certainly engaging and exploratory. Nowhere near as good as his novels but I could see how one or two of these stories could easily become a major new work. I think it'd be worth reading to see how his mind works as it crunches through thoughts and dreams and ideas on the way to becoming stories.
"Huge" by James Fuerst is about a little kid that is the reincarnation of Mickey Spillane. Totally a fun book about growing up (a little) and solving mysteries (or at least thinking you're solving mysteries).
"Transition" by Ian Banks looks like a new universe in the making. Typical Banks malevolent and dark humor peppered throughout a story about alternate universes and the enforcement officers who live across worlds holding back catastrophic badness. Love it.
"The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown is another one by Dan Brown. Do I have to say more? Think of it as cotton candy. This time instead of the church he takes on the founding fathers. A good read if you like the same story told over and over again (though it gets a bit strained and was certainly not as good as The DaVinci Code).
"This is Not a Game" by Walter Jon Williams wasn't as good as other musings on the topic (or other Williams books) but it does paint a credible future world and plays with the potential of crowdsourced augmented reality good guys, bad guys, and game designers. Worth reading if you like that sort of thing.
If you like the smell of paint, walking along the Seine and a touch of impressionist mystery, read The Swan Thieves Though not The Historian in terms of scope or vampire fun, she can definitely write. The book explores what it means and meant to be an artist both today and in the early 1900s. It also paints the picture of a man who is single mindedly obsessed and the doctor detective trying to discover the meaning of his patient's paintings. My only reservation is that there isn't much mystery and I was waiting for some kind of twist or turn that never really came (or if it did it was so predictable that I didn't notice).
I’m afraid I wasn’t all that wrapped up in Let The Great World Spin. I expected something as powerful as the Man on Wire film which was stunning. It was well written but didn’t drag me in like others in the “New York as character in the story” genre. Again, bought it for the cover and the promise of some connection between the early days of the twin towers and their later demise.
Something better but not quite easy on the brain is "Chronic City" by Jonathan Lethem. He's crafted another loopy lyrical lounging lay-about classic. It is laced with lunacy (or at least out of this world orbits) and lost loves. It has all the typical things you'd expect in a novel about a slightly alternate world New York City, like a roaming tiger, a run amok tunneling machine, a grown up blank slate but lovable or at least affable child actor with a girlfriend astronaut trapped in a decaying orbit in the sky, and a lazy eyed rock critic-conspiracy theorist named Perkus Tooth who is pretty certain that Marlon Brando is still alive waiting on another island to be called forth to save the city from the cynical billionaire mayor.
The Hunger Games was a quick read (warning it is book one of three and only two are out so far). Aimed at young readers, it can be a bit basic at times, but it’s worth a read if you like “dystopian death race boy meets girl and they both have to kill each other to survive” stories.
"Her Fearful Symmetry" by Audrey Niffenegger is your basic story about twin girls who have girls who maybe die and haunt and sometimes body hop. Worth reading just for the pleasure of how she writes."Mariposa" by Greg Bear was worth reading if you like slightly futuristic thrillers about insolvent America, overeaching corporations as military replacements, and a sprinkling of smart dust.
"The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers" by Thomas Mullen is pure gold. It is set in the 1930's in the midwest during a time of fast cars, bank robbers, and the newly emerging FBI. The story revolves around the oddly magical ability of two swashbuckling brothers to evade (mostly) death while they try to stay one step ahead of the law and maybe a half a step away from the breadlines.
"Six Suspects" by Vikas Swarup (author of the book that was made into the Slumdog Millionaire movie) is ok, but not great. Basically it starts with the murder of a playboy millionaire spoiled brat and then explores the six people who were all at the party who may have reason to kill him. It isn't a bad conceit but it didn't really feel like there was much mystery or tension.
"Galileo's Dream" wasn’t bad, a mish mash of history (pretty vivid depiction of Galileo’s place and time) and world spanning future hopping many dimensional time traveling trouble making. Kinda confused and anticlimactic but Kim Stanley Robinson is always a good writer and this might have just been a bit of the “reach exceeds grasp” sorta experiment that all good authors have to try. If you like history and sci-fi and ruminations on the nature of human nature, you’ll probably enjoy it. If you want something much deeper in the “history of scientific thinking with a touch of swashbuckling adventure genre” and something that is a bit more finely wrought (though wacky at times because of the author’s playful anachronisms), read the The Baroque Cycle.
If you’ve never read Jess Walters, now would be a good time to start. His new book, The Financial Lives of the Poets is a compact little story about one man’s descent into hell during the financial meltdown. It is funny, sad and hopeful.
Non-Fiction
"A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller is a short exploration of the elements of a good story and how you can think about your life as a story (and how to edit it along the way to guide it to be a better one). There is one particular story about a family who, among other things, decides to invite world leaders over to their house for a sleepover and the richness that springs from that one inciting incident (oh yeah, a good story has a character who wants something (even better if its something good for his life, his family, his community, or the world) and has to overcome obstacles (if you don't fail you aren't really aiming high enough and the best characters know there will be stumbles and falls along the way) to get it, but usually the character is comfortable and like most of us does not want to rock the boat... (so they need an inciting incident to get them moving). Read the book.
"Whatever it Takes" by Paul Tough is a book about Geoffrey Canada's efforts to build the Harlem Children's Zone. If you care at all about education read this book. If you like reading about doing the impossible, read this book. It has heartbreaking passages and inspirational ideas. I saw Geoffrey speak not that long ago and was pleasantly shocked by some of the things he said.
While we don’t burn scientists at the stake quite as often anymore there still is a surplus of Denialism. This book is an interesting screed on the widespread distrust of science and fact. It’s not a perfect book and seems a bit too arrogant at times (the people who should read it would never get past the first chapter), but overall it has some startling and disturbing examples of denial in the face of overwhelming evidence. While finding the link for this book I found another book about truthiness that sounds intriguing. True Enough.
"Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea" by Gary Kinder is the true story of the recovery of a ship filled with gold and other historic artifacts dating back to the American gold rush. Great story of the perils of going to sea, the origins of the gold rush, the amazing efforts of one man and his team to establish a working scientific presence 8-10,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, and the ensuing legal wrangling that followed when they discovered the most gold ever found in a shipwreck. A completely wonderful adventure even more fun because it really happened. One of the best elements of the book (and really the core of the story) is the main character. Tommy (Harvey) Thompson is a template for the idea of creativity, invention, perseverance, and the scientific method. This is a story about doing what all the experts thought was impossible. A must read.
Movies...
"ZombieLand" rocks.
Music...
Massive Attack's new album is deep and wonderful. Buy Heligoland now.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Ebb and Flow
“I guess this is what it feels like to know you might die,” he says and the immortality granted to him courtesy of his youth ebbs away just a little bit. A smile in his words even as he delivers the news, determined to protect us but needing shelter from the coming storm.
Sleeping, trying to sleep, not sleeping. Not fooling myself.
Listening to him breath, listening to her breath, looking at the time, three more minutes have passed, almost time, last supper over, no more food for fear of the reaction, waiting, sleep comes and a moment later the alarm sounds.
Wake up, quietly, rub the sleep out of your eyes, don’t wake your mother yet, not yet, let her sleep for a few more minutes, let her hold onto the time before her precious baby faces the knife, maybe this will all be a memory soon.
Maybe it will be worse, maybe we won’t know for a long time which way to think, what is happening, why, silently screaming, pleading, rationalizing, staying calm; stop it; he needs your strength not your over thought, overwrought, overblown circular, looping, spirals of what might be, better not be, can’t be. Drama.
Late. Move. Move. Move.
Splash of water in the face, drive to the hospital, get him admitted, he’s so calm, I think he’s trying to make sure I’m okay when all I care about is that he is, follow the paths that don’t really make sense, stumble through the families with haunted eyes, waiting with you but not for what you care about, lost in their own thoughts, waiting and hurrying, and waiting, comparing obvious and not so obvious ailments in the hope, some morbid hope that you can find someone who is far worse off, what the hell are you thinking, why do our minds play this game of relatives, and strangers, and relativity?
Finally see the doctor, what am I not asking, what had I better ask, what could happen, don’t sugar coat it, sugar coat it, confidence glows around him, percentages sound good, wait not good, how to even think about these things, keep him calm, it’ll be ok, no real time to think. Thirty percent chance of mortality seems much higher than I remember hearing as this whole nightmare began.
All stops.
Hold his hand and wait. Lame jokes. Just wait.
Silence feels okay, he is strong.
Other hospital visits flash back; a few years old and he can’t breath, blue is the color of my baby’s lips; eleven or twelve and he just can’t stop throwing up; call from my wife as she returns with him from a cutting dance down a wet hill with an angry lawnmower, a pair of blossoming gym shoes attest to the spinning pirouettes, count the toes, still all there, mostly.
They ask me to leave, they take him in, shave his head (he asks for the whole Mr. Clean treatment but it turns out to be too complicated, too messy… clean will come later as we sponge the blood and clots from his head and soak away stains of antibacterial joy), wait, find a signal, find a pattern in all the noise, call home which at the moment is a hotel on the outskirts of town, arms that carried him in her heart, eyes that glisten and well up through the phone, “Is he alright? He’s strong, isn’t he? Has it started yet? Is it over? Did the surgeon know what he was doing? Did you ask all of our questions? How much longer?”
We sit and hold each other’s attention, feeling together, alone.
Waiting.
Plumbers reroute the flow, reduce the pressure, trample through the pathways of the garden we have spent 26 years growing, why, what is going on, deep sense of dread that this is not a dream, that this will not be as easy as the mechanics think, knowing that beyond the logical maps, and body of knowledge lies a landscape of the mind that is still just a mystery, a universe in a few pounds of matter, strange loops far from known.
Prayer comes. Hope, and after hope, pressure to do something to help, to make sure this time you don’t forget something, you ask the right things, you protect him from his own body trying to crush his mind, what else can we do? What have I completely forgotten? How have I stumbled in my wobbly dance with fatherhood?
Wait. Pray.
Run through all the scenarios.
Why is he still in there?
What is taking them so long?
Doctor arrives all smiles, “you can see him in 30 minutes,” time passes.
Hours pass. Ask, wait, pace. Eat. Call. Wake up. What. Now? What. Now? What now?
What now?
Walk in. He is so wasted. Blown apart and wired up, and blanketed and drifting in and out, I hold his hand and he cracks wise with the cute young nurse, breath relief, get kicked out, “Is mom coming soon?” he croaks.
Fight the parking garage, DC traffic, fears that it’s not over, knowledge that this whole thing is new territory, way too much time alone with my head.
Find her, hold her, don’t move and it won’t change; the news is good, stop this moment, freeze it in time. But it won’t stop. We just keep moving metronome ticking and tocking us through the motions, drive on.
Wander the maze, wait for permission, tears edge her eyes when she sees him but she’s always been the strong one, the defiant one in the face of the world, fighter when we just want to hide away. He’s ok… what is all that stuff, all those tubes, the machines, why are they alarming, hello is anybody watching out for our baby?
Sit, stand, squeeze, hold him, room designed for bacteria more than families, reminder that the longer he’s in the hospital the more likely the single cells will win, the history of the world is written in these battles and I’m pretty sure that by any count they are winning. But he looks good all things considered, he’ll have more character. He comments that he’s on his way to becoming a Borg, sci-fi shorthand for assimilation into the singularity.
Can we not grin? We grin. We look away, lump in throat, eyes blurring.
Too soon…
Trying to get him to eat solid foods, get up and out, your fine, until late that night it all comes back up and fever pulls him under, his skin is burning up, pressure in his skull escalates while those damn alarms keep begging for someone to notice.
Welcome to the best healthcare money can buy. Nurses wander in and out, nothing amiss. How could you even know? Numb to the screams of the machines that call, “Wolf!”
Please (please, please, oh just forget the pleases and) FIND the doctor.
We start to wonder anew. We doubt and don’t sleep that night.
She tosses and turns and we just squeeze his arm, pat his leg, pushing our thoughts and prayers deep into his soul. Pressing down the darkness, imagining some invisible flow of something, power, safety, love, infusion of time. Take ours, use us, pick him up and hold him in the light, breath.
Wait.
“What can go wrong? Well there is a nicely annotated list of hypochondriatical dimensions.”
In fact each doctor, researcher, Intertube search can handily, silently, waitingly, wonderingly, fill long hours of delight uncovering byte size tidbits of unfiltered dread.
The litany of clinical voices echoes in our heads, to wit: diminished capacity, infection, hemorrhaging, mood shifts, and return of the crushing pressure (of course these things happen). Could be weeks or months or years later, closing of the new pathways, endocrinal variations. Might need to re-open it, shunt it (which is destined to fail and medically closer to last century’s stumbling than this new, shiny and clean approach). Oh, yeah, death, and taxes, and that wonderful, maddening so full of hopes and dreams, playful light, fading to something a little closer to a newborn puppy.
The waiting and not knowing and over thinking and senseless fear are all too much, too real, too sapping of strength, and we are left to wonder why we can’t fix it, why this rare and unexplained tragedy has placed its ghostly hands on his head.
Sure that five, ten, twenty years from now we’ll find out how foolish we were, how blunt the instruments of his cure have turned out to be, hoping it doesn’t turn out to be so, that he’s not one of the statistics, that somehow someway the ebbing tide just begins to flow and the dollar coin size stamp of approval embossed on his head fades from memory.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful day breaks.
Dappled light strobes through cheery blossoms as moments flicker through the days.
He begins to return. He gains strength.
His friends are legion. They try to make us smile. They reminisce about childhood Zen. They come to sit and cheer him on.
Friday he calls and asks for escape and there is an epic fight with the never-ending traffic to pry him loose from his crushing maw of clinical sterility.
We wait and live and wonder as we hold him tight. Now we find a new hotel, closer to his apartment. Sleeping with us so we can doctor him and nurse him and hold him still as he fights his need to move. The doctor has prohibited any exertion, beyond hauling a gallon of milk, for the next six weeks. He battles a ringing rushing rising torrent of something bubbly that he only hears in the quiet of the night. Cushioning crushing streams settle into new pathways, braiding a tapestry through his head.
“Will I always hear this, is this my fate, I’m trapped in my own head with an angry river?”
His body aches, his hands oddly chilled, his life on hold.
She makes things happen. Reminds us of all the little things we’ve lost track of, holds us together as we orbit this strange new world, starts to cheer him up by getting royally pissed off at him as his senses return and he turns into a smartass, twenty-something, the world revolves around me, baby again.
We catch a glint in her eye that is so obviously love it stops us in our footsteps. We are both, in our way, sure that we don’t deserve it.
She holds us so tightly in her caring gaze that it hurts with bittersweet pressure and we squeak and scream.
We are, he is, alive to fight another day. Together we roam on this meandering, stomach dropping, sunrising, journey into tomorrow and life starts again.
Sleeping, trying to sleep, not sleeping. Not fooling myself.
Listening to him breath, listening to her breath, looking at the time, three more minutes have passed, almost time, last supper over, no more food for fear of the reaction, waiting, sleep comes and a moment later the alarm sounds.
Wake up, quietly, rub the sleep out of your eyes, don’t wake your mother yet, not yet, let her sleep for a few more minutes, let her hold onto the time before her precious baby faces the knife, maybe this will all be a memory soon.
Maybe it will be worse, maybe we won’t know for a long time which way to think, what is happening, why, silently screaming, pleading, rationalizing, staying calm; stop it; he needs your strength not your over thought, overwrought, overblown circular, looping, spirals of what might be, better not be, can’t be. Drama.
Late. Move. Move. Move.
Splash of water in the face, drive to the hospital, get him admitted, he’s so calm, I think he’s trying to make sure I’m okay when all I care about is that he is, follow the paths that don’t really make sense, stumble through the families with haunted eyes, waiting with you but not for what you care about, lost in their own thoughts, waiting and hurrying, and waiting, comparing obvious and not so obvious ailments in the hope, some morbid hope that you can find someone who is far worse off, what the hell are you thinking, why do our minds play this game of relatives, and strangers, and relativity?
Finally see the doctor, what am I not asking, what had I better ask, what could happen, don’t sugar coat it, sugar coat it, confidence glows around him, percentages sound good, wait not good, how to even think about these things, keep him calm, it’ll be ok, no real time to think. Thirty percent chance of mortality seems much higher than I remember hearing as this whole nightmare began.
All stops.
Hold his hand and wait. Lame jokes. Just wait.
Silence feels okay, he is strong.
Other hospital visits flash back; a few years old and he can’t breath, blue is the color of my baby’s lips; eleven or twelve and he just can’t stop throwing up; call from my wife as she returns with him from a cutting dance down a wet hill with an angry lawnmower, a pair of blossoming gym shoes attest to the spinning pirouettes, count the toes, still all there, mostly.
They ask me to leave, they take him in, shave his head (he asks for the whole Mr. Clean treatment but it turns out to be too complicated, too messy… clean will come later as we sponge the blood and clots from his head and soak away stains of antibacterial joy), wait, find a signal, find a pattern in all the noise, call home which at the moment is a hotel on the outskirts of town, arms that carried him in her heart, eyes that glisten and well up through the phone, “Is he alright? He’s strong, isn’t he? Has it started yet? Is it over? Did the surgeon know what he was doing? Did you ask all of our questions? How much longer?”
We sit and hold each other’s attention, feeling together, alone.
Waiting.
Plumbers reroute the flow, reduce the pressure, trample through the pathways of the garden we have spent 26 years growing, why, what is going on, deep sense of dread that this is not a dream, that this will not be as easy as the mechanics think, knowing that beyond the logical maps, and body of knowledge lies a landscape of the mind that is still just a mystery, a universe in a few pounds of matter, strange loops far from known.
Prayer comes. Hope, and after hope, pressure to do something to help, to make sure this time you don’t forget something, you ask the right things, you protect him from his own body trying to crush his mind, what else can we do? What have I completely forgotten? How have I stumbled in my wobbly dance with fatherhood?
Wait. Pray.
Run through all the scenarios.
Why is he still in there?
What is taking them so long?
Doctor arrives all smiles, “you can see him in 30 minutes,” time passes.
Hours pass. Ask, wait, pace. Eat. Call. Wake up. What. Now? What. Now? What now?
What now?
Walk in. He is so wasted. Blown apart and wired up, and blanketed and drifting in and out, I hold his hand and he cracks wise with the cute young nurse, breath relief, get kicked out, “Is mom coming soon?” he croaks.
Fight the parking garage, DC traffic, fears that it’s not over, knowledge that this whole thing is new territory, way too much time alone with my head.
Find her, hold her, don’t move and it won’t change; the news is good, stop this moment, freeze it in time. But it won’t stop. We just keep moving metronome ticking and tocking us through the motions, drive on.
Wander the maze, wait for permission, tears edge her eyes when she sees him but she’s always been the strong one, the defiant one in the face of the world, fighter when we just want to hide away. He’s ok… what is all that stuff, all those tubes, the machines, why are they alarming, hello is anybody watching out for our baby?
Sit, stand, squeeze, hold him, room designed for bacteria more than families, reminder that the longer he’s in the hospital the more likely the single cells will win, the history of the world is written in these battles and I’m pretty sure that by any count they are winning. But he looks good all things considered, he’ll have more character. He comments that he’s on his way to becoming a Borg, sci-fi shorthand for assimilation into the singularity.
Can we not grin? We grin. We look away, lump in throat, eyes blurring.
Too soon…
Trying to get him to eat solid foods, get up and out, your fine, until late that night it all comes back up and fever pulls him under, his skin is burning up, pressure in his skull escalates while those damn alarms keep begging for someone to notice.
Welcome to the best healthcare money can buy. Nurses wander in and out, nothing amiss. How could you even know? Numb to the screams of the machines that call, “Wolf!”
Please (please, please, oh just forget the pleases and) FIND the doctor.
We start to wonder anew. We doubt and don’t sleep that night.
She tosses and turns and we just squeeze his arm, pat his leg, pushing our thoughts and prayers deep into his soul. Pressing down the darkness, imagining some invisible flow of something, power, safety, love, infusion of time. Take ours, use us, pick him up and hold him in the light, breath.
Wait.
“What can go wrong? Well there is a nicely annotated list of hypochondriatical dimensions.”
In fact each doctor, researcher, Intertube search can handily, silently, waitingly, wonderingly, fill long hours of delight uncovering byte size tidbits of unfiltered dread.
The litany of clinical voices echoes in our heads, to wit: diminished capacity, infection, hemorrhaging, mood shifts, and return of the crushing pressure (of course these things happen). Could be weeks or months or years later, closing of the new pathways, endocrinal variations. Might need to re-open it, shunt it (which is destined to fail and medically closer to last century’s stumbling than this new, shiny and clean approach). Oh, yeah, death, and taxes, and that wonderful, maddening so full of hopes and dreams, playful light, fading to something a little closer to a newborn puppy.
The waiting and not knowing and over thinking and senseless fear are all too much, too real, too sapping of strength, and we are left to wonder why we can’t fix it, why this rare and unexplained tragedy has placed its ghostly hands on his head.
Sure that five, ten, twenty years from now we’ll find out how foolish we were, how blunt the instruments of his cure have turned out to be, hoping it doesn’t turn out to be so, that he’s not one of the statistics, that somehow someway the ebbing tide just begins to flow and the dollar coin size stamp of approval embossed on his head fades from memory.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful day breaks.
Dappled light strobes through cheery blossoms as moments flicker through the days.
He begins to return. He gains strength.
His friends are legion. They try to make us smile. They reminisce about childhood Zen. They come to sit and cheer him on.
Friday he calls and asks for escape and there is an epic fight with the never-ending traffic to pry him loose from his crushing maw of clinical sterility.
We wait and live and wonder as we hold him tight. Now we find a new hotel, closer to his apartment. Sleeping with us so we can doctor him and nurse him and hold him still as he fights his need to move. The doctor has prohibited any exertion, beyond hauling a gallon of milk, for the next six weeks. He battles a ringing rushing rising torrent of something bubbly that he only hears in the quiet of the night. Cushioning crushing streams settle into new pathways, braiding a tapestry through his head.
“Will I always hear this, is this my fate, I’m trapped in my own head with an angry river?”
His body aches, his hands oddly chilled, his life on hold.
She makes things happen. Reminds us of all the little things we’ve lost track of, holds us together as we orbit this strange new world, starts to cheer him up by getting royally pissed off at him as his senses return and he turns into a smartass, twenty-something, the world revolves around me, baby again.
We catch a glint in her eye that is so obviously love it stops us in our footsteps. We are both, in our way, sure that we don’t deserve it.
She holds us so tightly in her caring gaze that it hurts with bittersweet pressure and we squeak and scream.
We are, he is, alive to fight another day. Together we roam on this meandering, stomach dropping, sunrising, journey into tomorrow and life starts again.
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