Tales From The Old Blogcabin...
In a mission to eventually get all my old content over to this web address, I will be cutting and pasting some selections of work over here from my old Salon Blog. If you've read it before, more new stuff is on the way. Otherwise, dig in!
Do These Genes Make My Butt Look Big?
The summer before I entered university, I realized (via a terse letter from admissions) that I needed two more credits in order to qualify for admission to my program. I'd taken all academics (no electives, save for Visual Arts) in my senior year, and I couldn't believe that I'd missed something. I'd planned my whole courseload based on getting into university! But, then again, I'd changed my mind about which school I wanted to enter, partway through my last year. Apparently, my new choice was more rigorous in their expectations; my Geology would not cut it as a science credit, and my tenth grade French was deemed insufficient for my secondary language credit.
In order to get into university, I had five weeks to complete Biology 12 and French 12. By correspondence. Having not taken Biology 10 or 11, or French 11. How the freak was that supposed to work? I'd avoided taking Biology or Chemistry because I didn't think I could keep a 90 + average in those classes....I was no great science brain. Geology just felt easier..... I could study boulders, instead of blood and Bunsen burners. The choice made sense then, but now I was faced with the option of hustling through bewildering courses, or not moving away to glorious independence in September.
I signed up for both courses, and went to the Distance Learning Center with my dad to pick up my books. The French course textbooks weren't too horrible looking size-wise, but they were in French, and that wasn't good. The Biology package was a terrible stack of thick texts, videos, and workbooks glowing with awful pictures of fetal pigs and human guts. The two courses seemed impossibly complicated, and I cried all the way home.
My parents sat me down to discuss my study schedule, but I'd already thought it through; I refused to miss all the afternoons at the lake, and the sheer amount of tanning hours my friends would be enjoying sans correspondence. I developed my schedule thus:
9 pm: Begin studying Biology.
2 am: Begin studying French.
6 am: Go to sleep.
11 am: Get up, go lie on deck in sun, finish sleeping.
12:30 pm: Call friends, leave house to do whatever.
8:30 pm: Come home, eat dinner.
9 pm: Begin studying Biology again.
They were not thrilled by the whole plan, since it only involved 6 and a half hours of sleep per day, 9 hours of studying, and 8 and a half hours of playing. I thought it made perfect sense, though...I could sleep when it was coolest, study when there was nothing better to do, and be outside in the sunshine when it was high in the sky. Eventually, they gave up trying to convince me to take on a more normal schedule, and I embarked on my 35 days of academic hell.
Every night, I would sit at my computer with my feet in a bucket of ice water, trying to stay cool and focused. Sometimes, I would have to sneak quietly downstairs to watch a video about dissection, or some other horrid thing I never, ever wanted to see.. I'd stop off at the kitchen for a snack on the way, and grab watermelon, or Mallowmars, or chips, and sit munching and gagging at all the carnage. To this day, Sour Cream and Onion chips make me think of fromaldehyde-soaked kittens.
I finished the courses with a few days to spare, pulling a B in French and an A in Biology. I felt amazing relief on the day I sent in my last assignment...I'd conquered my most hated subjects, and I could breathe again. The university accepted me, and I was set to go.
Within a couple of weeks, I think I'd forgotten everything I learned. My vocabulary words had vanished into thin air, and I couldn't remember a friggin' thing about how to take apart an eyeball. The only thing that stuck with me in even the most limited fashion was my unit on Genetics. I took away the following flawed understanding:
Two really beautiful people could end up with a weird looking kid, and vice versa.
The whole notion of dominant and recessive genes, and figuring out what you got from which side of the family, was pretty damn cool. I knew my green eyes and curves came from my mom, and that my dark hair and rosy cheeks came from my dad, but I loved that everything else seemed like a crapshoot.
I'm sure my take on these concepts would horrify a geneticist. My friends in Sciences didn't even try and explain it to me....they just let me prattle on in delusion. I found myself staring at kids' parents, trying to figure out how they came to look the way they did. Eventually I got over my little fixation, and went back to being a Science avoider. Until I went to work at Starbucks, that is.
My store was in an extremely affluent neighbourhood near the university, and most of my customers spent more on lattes in a week than I actually made serving them. Most of the rich people were obnoxiously beautiful, given good dentistry, access to home gyms, and layers of expensive makeup and clothes. Some of the mothers would bring their children in and treat them like little dress-up dolls....tiny versions of Mom in Gap Kids. If their babes were as gorgeous as they were, all was well. But if the child of a beautiful mother happened to look a bit odd, then things went horribly awry. This was the case with Mrs. Bridgeman and her only daughter.
Elsa Bridgeman's parents looked like models. Elsa looked like a garden gnome. She was short where they were tall, chubby where they were lean with muscle, and dark and hairy where they were blonde and smooth. She looked like she'd emigrated from Greece to join a Swedish family. She wasn't adopted, though....she was just an odd quirk of genetics. This was the source of much angst for Mrs. Bridgeman, who was constantly fussing with her child's clothes (too tight....they couldn't deal with the size she really was), her hair (kinky, sooty and perpetually triangle-shaped), and her face (mottled with acne). Elsa would get nonfat drinks at her mom's insistence upon their daily morning stop-in, and then sneak frappucinos on her way home from school. She was never going to look like her mother; clearly, this was the bane of Mrs. Bridgeman's existence. You could see her friends looking on at the child in pity, while secretly thanking God for their lithe, smooth-locked daughters. As a result of all the scrutiny, Elsa was awkward, shaky, and perpetually startled. I'd put extra chocolate into her afternoon drinks out of sympathy for her sorry fate. She would probably grow out of all the stuff she was experiencing now and end up looking quite striking appearance-wise, but the damage inside was long done.
One morning, the squabbling Bridgemans were debating in line about how many calories were in a Caramel Machiatto, when an absolute vision appeared behind them. It was a Norse Amazon of a teen: buttery-blonde, blue-eyed, and pink-cheeked. Elsa looked daggers at her, but Mrs. Bridgeman was immediately focused on the woman behind the junior supermodel. She was probably 300 pounds, almost a foot shorter than the girl, and clad in a sweatsuit that could only be described as "snug".
I'd seen them before; another mother and child pair. They were tremendously affectionate with one another, and joked about getting extra whipped cream on their Mochas. This was the kind of connection the Bridgemans would never, ever have, and it was obvious after only a moment's observation.
I thought Mrs. Bridgeman was going to faint dead away. Here was the daughter she'd always wanted, and she belonged to THAT. She caught the woman's eye and said in a breathless voice, ragged with envy, "Wow"....here she pointed to Elsa and then to the blonde girl...."Switched at birth, hey?" A terrible silence followed.
Elsa's cheeks turned to fire, and she looked at her mother in abject horror. The woman and her daughter looked back at Mrs. Bridgeman in bewilderment, until she finally skulked away from them to go to the register down the counter from mine. She tugged wildly at the waistband of her daughter's pants all the way, ("Nothing more than herbal tea!") until Elsa pulled free and ran from the lineup.
The fat woman and her thin child came to my till, and as I rang in their drinks, she gestured towards Mrs. Bridgeman.
"That lady is seriously nuts. What the heck did she mean by that?" .
"Yeah....I dunno, she's a little intense." I didn't know what else to say. The mother grabbed her daughter's hand, and pulled her close with great indignance. The two of them turned and smiled at one another, and as they walked away, the mother spoke to me over her shoulder:
"I mean, come on......my baby looks just like her mama."
they lie with you when you're asleep.
When I was 18, I spent some time volunteering at the Children's Hospital, in the pastoral care department. I went with a few friends, all of us "wanting to make a difference'....we were naive, I think; we hadn't known enough disappointment in our lives to think twice about trying to change the world. We never really questioned our motives for doing what we did, because how could hospital visitation be a bad thing? But I think we were trying too hard to be "noble"....and I don't know that nobility should be such an effort. Still, we went once a week, and I fell in love with it.
Two of my friends went to visit on the floor that housed all the post-op kids. Those patients were usually fairly restless, having been webbed with tubes and set in casts for weeks on end. But the girls I came with were naturally gregarious, and would entertain their charges with dumb jokes and wheelchair tours down to the cafeteria. I loved watching them coax smiles from the frustrated patients they came to know by "name and game" (usually Nintendo, in the teen lounge).
Another friend and I chose a different spot for our Wednesday nights; we went to the floor that housed the infant ICU and oncology units. I would inevitably end up spending most of my time on the nursery side...my pro-nanny skills at getting babies to stop crying were well-used there. When I would arrive, the nurses would find me the most fussy, lonely soul among the pale green rooms, and let me go to work. I think it did as much for me as it did for them....I could feel my whole week fade away in the soft breathing of the one swaddled in my arms.
Some of the babies were well attended by parents and relatives, who would hover close to their incubators and will them with nervous smiles to get better. Most of them would; I'd come in every week to note the new 'grad' pictures on the nursing station wall. Some would return for further operations, or because of some relapse or other....but I was amazed again and again by their resilience and capacity to heal.
But I remember other circumstances as well.
Jenny was eight or nine months, and had a disorder I didn't understand in the least. The nurses tried to explain it to me...some sort of rare cancer-related blood sickness. I didn't know how someone so small ended up with such a huge problem, but she seemed totally fine. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes were huge and blue, and she had the same dark hair I did. Parents coming in to see their kids would see me holding her, and assume she was mine...I would usually correct them, but sometimes I would just smile. That girl was a glorious break from my usual wailing patients...a cherubic, wiggling treat.
One of the doctors called her 'Little Miss Flirt', since she was easy with a smile, and would go to almost anyone. She was used to strangers, having been in CH care since she was only a couple months old. Her parents were in every day, sometimes accompanied by their three year old, who would tear up the place, running and yelling and causing havoc. He was completely healthy, and eager to have his sister join him at home. From what I understood, that possibility looked pretty solid, and when I went home for my Christmas holidays, I thought for sure I'd come back to find Baby Jen on the grad wall. I knew I'd miss her, but that was always the goal.
The first Wednesday of the New Year, we were back at our duties, and I was greeted warmly by the nurses, who handed off a little guy named Jacob, bright red and screaming from a shot he'd received. I held him close, rocking gently and humming, and walked slowly over to the pictures on the wall. No Jenny.
I caught one of the nurses on my way back to Jacob's room, and asked after my girl. She cringed a little.
"Yeah....Jenny. She's still here, but she's in the ICU. Not doing so well." I was a little startled, and went to find her across the hall, as soon as I laid Jacob down for his nap. Three weeks had made more difference than I could have believed possible.
She was in one of the rooms outfitted with a sliding glass door, and a marker-written list of regulations labeled "Before You Enter". I put on the yellow smock, mask, and bonnet given to me by a stern senior nurse, and headed into the dimly-lit space. She'd explained why Jenny's condition had gone downhill, but I wasn't really listening. My stomach hurt, and my ears were pounding. There were needles and tubes everywhere on her little body, and the pink circles that usually framed her smile were gone, replaced by pale, flaky skin. It was Jenny, but her eyes were shut tight; she didn't greet me at all. I was allowed to hold her, but I was nervous to navigate all the feeding apparatus and IV drips. I'm glad she wasn't awake, because the look on my face might have made her cry; it was more indignation than anything, brewing deep in my mind. What the hell had happened? I couldn't believe it, that this baby was the one I'd bee-lined for every week, the one that was always about to go home. When my friend came to collect me, he could see that I was upset, but he let me be. I was not one to voice sadness, and I hadn't really managed to process what I'd seen yet, anyway.
Babies had died between my visits before. I'd always gotten choked up, but there would quickly be another one that needed me, so I'd put aside feeling sorry for myself. Why was this any different?
I came back twice a week from then on, finding rides to the CH, and staying longer than usual. Jenny's parents weren't there very often anymore, having decided, as one of the nurses told me, to "focus on the boy for a while". I yelled about this on the phone to a friend, and she shared my disdain. How could you not be there every minute? But my mother urged compassion, as always. How did I know what they were going through? Could I imagine for a second what they were feeling? I'd mumble agreement, then hang up and damn them in my heart. My 18 year-old soul was all black and white, and it had no room for grieving parents.
She still wasn't responsive at all, even after I'd been back a few weeks. I'd rock her and talk to her just the same, waiting for the movieland moment when she would open her pretty eyes and drink me in. I really believed things would improve, despite the fact that no one had ever indicated to me that positive change was possible for this little one. They would just tell me what a "good thing" it was that I was doing, and smile sadly when they closed the sliding door on Jenny and I, sitting in the chair. I sang my way through the whole Beatles catalog, and into Simon and Garfunkel (babies dig sixties folk-pop, it's a proven fact):
I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls
My mind's distracted and confused
My thoughts are many miles away
They lie with you when you're asleep
Kiss you when you start the day
And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There before the grace of you go I.
Jenny didn't wake up, but I kept going. Maybe my endless singing would bug her so much she would cry. But she slept on, breathing in fits and starts, quiet in the midst of beeping machines, soft noises beyond the glass, and my shaking voice.
One Wednesday, I came in, and headed anxiously for her room. She was there, silent, impossibly still. I went to get on the yellow scrubs, since I now knew where they were kept without asking. As I slid back the door, I heard one of the nurses greet me. I didn't even respond...I just headed over and picked her up. The audacity of my feelings of ownership are obvious to me now, but they seemed righteous, at the time. I sat down to rock her, thinking of a song, and cooing softly to her little face.
April come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain;
May, she will stay,
Resting in my arms again.
June, she'll change her tune,
In restless walks she'll prowl the night;
July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight.
August, die she must,
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold;
September I'll remember
A love once new has now grown old.
I don't know if the words were audible, this time...just whispers, sometimes moans. I was blinking furiously, and smiling with abject determination beneath my mask. One of the nurses came in to check on us, and she reached and pulled down the yellow cloth from over my face, so my trembling lips were in view.
"It's okay, " she said. "Let her see you sing." She left us alone again. And then the song was gone.
Instead my noises became a prayer, a prayer of two angry words, uttered over and over. Nothing else came into my head.
"Please, Jesus. Please, Jesus." I don't know what that meant. It may have been a request for mercy, or an incredulous query of some sort. But I must have said it a hundred times, adjusting her blankets, watching tiny dots appear on them, falling wet from my face. I kept glancing up at the ceiling, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. Then my eyes grew too blurry to see.
My friend knocked gently on the glass door that it was time to go. When I set Jenny back in her bed after a few moments, I told her I would be back, that she was beautiful, and that things would be fine.
According to the nurses, she died a few hours later.
I don't believe that babies become angels when they go to Heaven...it doesn't make sense. It's a typically lame Hallmark idea that I cannot abide. The work of an angel seems to be that of protector and servant, and I don't see God burdening little ones with such a job, no matter what we adults want to believe. I think babies just get to smile at everyone, to lie in warm arms, and to hear songs that send them to good, good rest.
"Please, Jesus."
And He is there.
8:58:07 PM 
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