GOING HOME

air bellows rock formation

My surprise disappearance for three nights, two full days and two half days has left Caterpillar unhinged. She was shut in the house the whole time. I'd told her I'd return soon when I went out the door, just going for a doctor appointment. I always close her in the house when I leave for assurance she's safe from dogs and coyotes. It's a dangerous world around here when you're the right size for a Happy Meal and slow. She has safe places outside she likes to lie still and watch the bird activity, and the places sunlight falls different times of day. I attempted to send her messages by way of telepathy that I'm detained for a few days, but will return. First time I entered the house was for ten minutes, to change clothes, put down some food for her, put fresh water in her bowl, turn around and leave. She did not bother to come out from her hidden sleeping place to see me. Cats mourn so deeply, I've seen when I am gone too long a cat will pretend it doesn't see me, hasn't noticed I'd returned. This will go on for an hour or more. I called to Caterpillar and told her I was back. Then left. Chris Cox was reading from his new book, The Way We Say Goodbye, at the library from 10-1 Saturday. I wanted to be there, and I had four copies of an Old-Time Herald issue for him and his manuscript of the book he'd sent me to read. I felt it imperative to be there to deliver the items as Chris lives down around Asheville and doesn't get up this way a whole lot. I never drift that far from home anymore. Chris is someone I think of as a friend, though I see him so seldom, I see people I don't know at all more than Chris. We met in the mid 1980s and since then maybe we've been in touch a dozen times at most. Every time we meet, it's like last time was last week.

chris cox reads out loud

I was anxious in the back of my mind at the hospital hoping to be out of there in time to make it to Chris's reading. I'd been told I might go home Saturday morning. If not, I'd have to stay all weekend. It was a horrifying prospect at first, but after being in there a few days, I could have easily relaxed into a few more since it's a new day at the hospital in Sparta. I wanted to be back with Caterpillar, knew she was worried and lonesome. I'd asked a neighbor to keep her fed. I hoped to be out Saturday morning in time to go home, change clothes and return for Chris's reading. Without these two concerns, I'd have been happy to stay. Crystal brought my Van Gogh biography. I was fine. It was crazy-making, however, to be in a room with a tv that had 50 channels and all of it nothing. I caught a few minutes of Jimmy Fallon on Tonight. He's funny sometimes. He failed to hit my funny bone and I clicked him off. Surfing the channels, a few seconds at each one, I saw murder, killing, shooting, investigating killings, guns, pointing them rudely at others, threatening with them. People I know who watch television all complain there's nothing worth seeing on a hundred channels. I watched ten or fifteen minutes of two soccer matches. I like to see the perfect control those guys have kicking the ball. Nonetheless, I never took to sports for the main reason I saw no point in wasting energy, attention and time chasing a ball. Dogs chase balls. I can watch tv football with company, but cannot watch two minutes of it alone. Alone, I'd rather have silence. In my brief idle moments channel-surfing, it made me shake my head to see so much furious violence, so much police state activity. I understand why we have police state--just like on tv. Life imitating kitsch. Kitsch imitating life. Which is it? It's both. 

air bellows outdoor museum of contemporary art

I lay there in the hospital bed watching the images of killing by gun, one after the other, unable to watch more than three seconds each, surrealist tv, feeling sorrow for the American people. No wonder our "representatives" are so nuts. They "represent" people whose heads are full of these images continually, at work, asleep, as are their own heads. All I saw was distraction by destruction. The tv shows were distractions. The commercials were distractions. The news shows were distractions. Cell phones are distraction. I saw us a nation of people whose heads are loaded with extremely violent distractions, static. The static, itself, has become appealing, relaxing white noise. Our "representatives" operate by the television standard that only money matters. I feel sorrow for the American people when I have my periodic insight into what is happening on the television. Everything interrupted by commercials. This, I suspect rather strongly, is the source of conversation in America characterized by interrupting anecdotes with interruptable anecdotes. I do my best not to be annoyed by interruption anymore, have come to accept it's what happens, that I live in a world of people whose attention span makes a cat's attention span appear controlled. I talk with people as if an interruption were not coming soon, though when it happens, and it always happens, I am now able to shut it down easily in my mind. It's over, done, don't even attempt to get it back, just go on. I've got so rude that when I see somebody in town, stop and talk a few minutes, their cell phone goes off in whatever personal touch ring they've chosen, they go straight to the phone and start talking, I leave. I don't even say goodbye. I'm never missed. It's not even noticed I left. Once interrupted, I'm done. That's the grumpy old bastard within. This is my major problem with television, its alarming numbing effect on the people I live among anywhere in America.

caterpillar

I was able to make it to the library half way through Chris's reading, walked in during intermission, was directed to the snack table where I had lunch; meatballs, raw broccoli and carrot slices, in memory of Jack and Jenny I missed as much as I missed Caterpillar. Chris's reading was supreme. He read some of the humorous stories. He couldn't make it through the ones close to the heart. Chris's writing is automatically close to the heart, as he writes from the heart, just like his mountain musician grandpa, Clif Evans, made music. Chris chokes up and can't go on when it's emotional for him. One can write the memories from close to the heart much easier than one can read them publicly, even sometimes alone. Most notable for me, since I already knew his writing was music, was his ability to read in his talking rhythm. A few times I wondered if he might be telling something as an aside or actually reading. He was reading. It seemed like he was ad libing from time to time, and I remembered he writes like this. This is part of what I think of as his mastery. Good public reader. I was happy for him to see him having a good time and being received so wide open by the people there to listen. I went straight home from the library. Jack saw me drive down the road and brayed his excitement. I took some sweet grain to the donkeys as soon as I reached the house and put everything down. I let Caterpillar come to me in her own time. I put on a Warren Miller documentary of Xtreme skiing in severe mountains around the world, a visual distraction. I held Caterpiller and talked to her. She purred, I purred, relaxed and in place, telling each other how glad we are to be together again. I explained to her what happened; the doctor would not let me go home, they put me in the hospital and wouldn't let me out. I tried to send her messages by telepathy, though I don't know how. She started crying. I knew the four-leggeds cried, but did not recall ever seeing one cry before. She wept. I realized she was deeply hurt by fear I was not coming back, had nothing to go by that I would, locked in the house, food just about gone. It tore me up that Caterpillar was crying. I let her cry and comforted her, shedding some tears with her. She wants me to hold her more than ever and she stays close by. She's so comfortable now when I hold her she falls asleep and snores. A cat who has never liked to be held for very long since she was a kitten is now falling asleep in my arms and wants me holding her all the time. I don't mind. We're both in our later years, all the more precious to each other.   

caterpillar

*

SCIENCE AND THE SPIRIT

Multi-tasking today. Was released from hospital after a two-night stay. Went to see doctor Thursday morning in a semi-emergency condition. After seen by doctor, he told me to go straight to the hospital and check in, now. I said, "Can I go home to get a book?" He'd suggested I might stay over the weekend. His answer was, "No." I walked to the hospital, about the distance from my door to the mailbox, leaving the car in front of doctor's office. Once in, they wouldn't let me out. Later, I pleaded that I be allowed to move the car to a longer-term space in the hospital parking lot. It was taken as if I were going to escape and not come back. I was allowed, reluctantly. Displeased with the prospect of staying over the weekend, because staff is reduced to just a few and the hospital feels desolate on weekends, I rankled at the thought of four or more days stranded without a book, nothing but television in the room; only women's magazines and men's hunting magazines in the waiting rooms. I already know there is nothing on tv I want to see. Last time in hospital, several years ago, I had to stay over the weekend. At one point in the day, Saturday, I rang the nurse's station, said I needed some assistance, waited a long time, rang again, same answer, will be right there. Nobody showed up. I walked to nurse's station,  Two part-time CNAs on weekend duty were standing there talking like between classes in school, in a doorway so nobody could go in our out. They looked at me like I was an intruder; they were busy. I said, "Does anybody work here?" Did that ever charge the air with animosity. By then, I was in a mood not to care what impression I made. I stated my need and walked back to the room. They were not friendly after that. They weren't friendly before, either.  

I saw right away a very different attitude among hospital staff in this visit to the hospital than I'd ever seen before. The supervisor of the nurses and CNAs dropped in the room yesterday and asked my assessment of their performance. I waxed ebullient. I said I loved the nurses. All were friendly and responsive to the point they'd ask if they could get me coffee or something else during the day. By the time I left this morning, I felt like all the nurses who'd tended to my needs in my time of incarceration were my friends. Like when I see any of them in the grocery store, they'll act like they've seen me before, will even stop and talk. One of the CNA's this time was a facebook friend. One of the nurses, Tina, who lived across the state line in Virginia, told me she and her husband had the house painted four years ago. The paint on it before was put there by Enoch Rutherford, Grayson County old-time banjo picker who died twenty or more years ago a legend. I told her that last year I'd given my friends Justin and Crystal a Willard Gayheart pencil drawing of Enoch Rutherford. Justin is a house painter. He'll love hearing that Enoch painted houses. Tina's grandmother and Enoch lived almost in sight of each other. She said on weekend nights the air was alive with fiddle and banjo music. The x-ray tech I've known over 30 years. We've seen each other's hair turn white. The ultra-sound operator is my neighbor. He'd also lived in San Diego, where I was born. I saw Richard Nichols, bluegrass bass player, and his boy Trevor, old-time fiddler, who do the hospital maintenance. I hadn't seen Trevor in several years. His hair is gray now. It took a second to recognize him. I wanted to shake his hand as I rolled by, the passenger in a wheelchair, and recognized him for certain a split second too late.  I was checked into the hospital by a beautiful black woman whose face I studied all the time she entered information into the computer. American Indian features, skin tone leaning toward bronze. I attempted not to be conspicuous gaping at her particular beauty.  I was thinking I'd like to paint her portrait. I know it feels creepy to have somebody staring at you. I couldn't help it. She paid it no mind. I was an old white guy. They're creepy anyway. 

The Friday night shift had a nurse, a CNA and another CNA, all three named Ashley. First one I met, the nurse, said, "When you need something, just call for Ashley." I recognized her when she stepped into the room as someone I've seen multiple times, have spoken with, unable to recall where. She said she'd worked in a restaurant before she became a nurse. With that for a clue, I puzzled over the restaurants in town, and couldn't find her in any of them, but knew she was there, she was so familiar. Later, I asked and it was the one I had not been to in ten years. That was when she worked there. I only recalled going there a few times. Now that it's in my mind and I'm seeing the interior, her taking the order, recollection is surfacing, I've been there several times. We have two shopping centers with parking lots. I tend to go to the grocery store in the other one from the restaurant's. I felt right away in her responsive personality that she's held nurse an ideal for herself and worked a long time saving the money. She seemed to me that she was at home in herself. She was where she wanted to be, doing what she wanted to do. Every nurse and CNA I became acquainted with during their shift gave the sense that they are doing what they want to do. The woman whose title I forget, she's head knocker of the nurses, stopped by and we talked. She had the same sense about her the others had, that this is where she wants be today, doing what she wants to do. Present in herself. A white woman's face of striking beauty that I couldn't divert my attention from gaping at. I was painting her face in my mind's eye while we talked. I was multi-tasking, studying her face and focusing on our conversation, right-brain, left-brain, both going at once, yin-yang in motion, balance. I was seeing the feminine, and every one with what I can only think of as goddess energy. I know that sounds corny, but it's the closest I can get. It was healing goddess energy. It was my first hospital experience where I felt healing energy in the entire staff, individually. 

I felt like every one of them I could paint a portrait of as an aspect of goddess, but could never reproduce the presence. It was powerful. I did, indeed, feel for the the first time in a hospital, healing energy in the presence of everyone I encountered. I couldn't help but think frequently, there's something going on here that's important. And the doctor, himself, he generates healing energy. I don't mean to get 1980s California New Age on you, but these are the words closest to what I'm reaching for, the only words I can use to avoid pages and pages of explanation. The sense I felt was this may be the future. First glimmers of the light of dawn in humanity's dark night of the soul. My experience took me from waiting rooms to all over the place. I felt at home and safe everywhere in there. Every experience in my time there was as comfortable as being at home. I'm not even intending this to be a review. It's just that this is my experience. And thanks to a new discovery of science a new pill for thinning blood that dissolves (or something) blood clots. Mighta went pop in my skull or shut down the heart. I went in unaware of the great white swimming under my boat waiting for me to jump in for a swim. This is the second time science has extended my stay in this body. Went through the hole in the big white donut three or four times. That was trippy. I wondered about people whose lives the donut extended by several years, if they gave credit to the scientific method. So much that is wonderful has happened in my life since my previous stay of execution by science, I can only feel grateful, as well as to the healing energy of my doctor and his nurses. Agnes Joines dropped by this morning before I was let go. She had brought Ernest for examination. She told me their boy who lives out West knows the woman who discovered this new blood thinner. That knocked me over like a bowling pin. In my mind's eye I saw the drawing of Enoch Rutherford. More than many interesting coincidences happened throughout the stay. Channel-surfing the tv this morning around 4am, unable to sleep, weary of reading, I found a Led Zeppelin concert. Saw the last hour of it. Raw chance. My experience from walking in the doctor's office to walking out of the hospital was so comfortable and so healing I feel it was divinely directed. Science and the Spirit flowing together, another good balance. 

photos by tj worthington