BEING IN THE WORLD

Steve told me a story about his childhood. He was running and he knocked his shin against a concrete block. He thought hmm, my leg doesn't feel quite right. Lifted up his jeans to discover a cut, a slice right to his bone. It didn't even bleed. The flesh just parted. And in the sunlight, the bone was the most white material on earth. Almost supernaturally flourescent white. It glowed. He was compelled to stick his finger on the bone, to touch it.

I've been thinking a lot lately about experience vs. concept. For much of my life I've had a concept of particular things and events: death, career, friendship, love. The crucible of adult experience has strengthened some of my concepts and obliterated others. I have this idea that a lot of my generation's outlook is based on conflated nostalgia. That we are removed from real experience, that we take one single walk in the park with a parent and conflate it into this whole meaningful experience: Oh, yes, I used to walk in the park with my parent. When actually it only happened once. (This is just an example.)

A friend once explained to me that he couldn't get any satisfaction. He'd go to nightclubs, shows - anything to try to feel happy. From event to event. But he couldn't feel anything.I yearn for days and days, continuity with friends, multiple lifetimes with my friends. I yearn for a common experience about which we can talk and remember. I relate to the vibrant fading planet, to long walks. To pleasure of skin and lungs and air. To agreements made between two people. I relate to people who have done things, who know the scope of things. To my companion who bangs around in his loosely constructed truck.

**

Listening to a series of philosophy lectures, "Self Under Siege." The gist of the lectures is about how to establish meaning, identity, outlook in the post-modern era.

One of the initial philosophers discussed is Heidegger. Heidegger's ideas seem particularly pertinent to our adventure:

1. Humans are abandoned to the "they," to initial circumstance. We are "thrown" into this life. The lecturer makes a point that many of an individual's values are actually societal values which the individual just thoughtlessly adopts.

2. Until we face nothingness, we fill our lives with business.

3. Ideally, we are to be free for our projects. This is the great endeavour, the grand stanza.

Steve and I are trying to act as our own agents in this world, on our own authority.

Until recently, I had followed the path of least resistance. I fell into my cog: career, family. I've always had this idea that I would travel in Europe, that I would meet intellectuals, artists, poets. I had a false idea that someone would give this to me, that I wouldn't have to pursue it. That the path would just open forth.

Steve says you have to go to the bridge. The bridge don't come to you.

People assume that they have to wait for all conditions to be perfect before trying to pursue a dream. Conditions will never be perfect. Steve is hopefully recovering from cancer, but even if he isn't recovered, we have to pursue our goal. We are not going to wait and wait and wait.

On a more practical note: we do want to have regular checkups of Steve's throat while in Europe. I'm wondering which European countries have the least expensive healthcare. Is it possible to get radiation therapy in Eastern Europe? If anyone out there has information about this, please contact me.

I WHO PART LEAF IN DREAM

How often do you
see an angry fly or the
shadow of gravel?
We who roar by on the highways

On this walk,
and the day is suddenly warm,
makes a perfume of the foliage
and Sky Pappy is all clear,
the silent slice of a bird's
straight line through the blue--

Who is more awake?
The bird or the man who just
chunked by in his truck, off to his
industriousness?

I think the insects are
more awake, bumbling
about in their outside business

Would I, outside all the time
become drugged?

Is it only the sharp splash
into a pool that thrills?

Can this shiny world keep shining
please?

I who part leaf in dream

AT THE HOSPITAL

Oh, I love him and it hurts. White-knuckled, time fast and furious in the waiting room. I read and re-read the same paragraphs. Try to get lost in reading, try not thinking about Steve.He's in the bowels of the hospital where I cannot be.They're cutting him, scooping out polyps from his nose and taking a tissue sample from his larynx. (He had cancer removed from his larynx and radiation therapy earlier this year.) I wonder What if they find more - what else could they find? Doctor told us 98% of nasal polyps are not cancerous. Still, we're having them biopsied.I've spent the last month watching Steve smoke. When he exhales, he blows it back out his nostrils. Sometimes it's beautiful, when the smoke wafts in the golden afternoon sunlight. Other times it's yellowish, thick choky smoke.

I imagine hot, tar-laden smoke gumming up his larynx, his lungs, coating and burning everything as it bathes his lungs, his brain. A smoke bed for his polyps.

At first I thought, OK, I'll be an example. I won't smoke.

And then him getting further away from me, him feeling guilty - not enjoying the time he's smoking. And me appearing self-righteous. So I smoke when he smokes.

Steve says, it's OK, nothing to worry about - the doctors cut the cancer off his larynx and then they irradiated him. He says it took 40 years for the cancer to grow - it'll take another 40 years for it to grow back.

My understanding of this is different. I believe that he's exposed all his cells to these toxins, and these cells now have more of a tendency to become cancerous. A cell can only absorb so much interference to its weaving before it goes crazy. And I imagine all these little cells along his throat, his sinuses, his lungs - all of which have been stressed, the DNA weaving coming undone.

It's complicated. I hope, hope, hope that he won't smoke after this last surgery. I get sad, but it's his life.

**

The receptionist calls "Smith Family" to her. She points at a door and says something, I hear the word "left." I'm confused. She has to bring me to the consultation room, where Steve's doctor waits.

He has pictures. There's Steve, lights out. Something down his throat. And before pictures of wet red tissue, with occasional yellowish whitish tissue. These are the polyps. And then another picture - uniform chunks of beef fat, chicken fat, on a napkin. These are the polyps, now removed.

And he draws two circles (eyes), two triangles, a jagged line for teeth. And a sideways drawing, boxlike, representing the path of the nose through the head into the brain.

He said the sinuses were packed. Chock full of polyps. Says something about them growing close under the brain, close to the eye.

I'm hoping Steve is one of the majority, the 98% of non-cancerous nasal polyp holders.

I ask the doctor to repeat everything he said about the second picture. He doesn't. I think he thinks I'm stupid, a kind of young trophy wife. I have the urge to tell him, Hey, I'm special and I'm flawed. I have an electrical engineering degree. I've come to this body and face for the first time in my life. I am an old person in a young person's body. I am done with elitism and exceptionalism, though. Let his impression of me be his own.

**

Back in Steve's recovery room, and he's coming back from the anesthesia. He's confused, and his voice is a liquidy whisper. I pat him on the head, kiss his cheek. He seems fragile.

The doctor's packed wadding in his nose and up through his sinuses. Two black strings are attached to the wadding. He'll pull it out Monday.

Nurse says there's a checklist of things that have to happen before she'll let Steve go. He has to urinate, be steady on his feet, eat something without vomiting, and the bleeding has to slow down.

We want to go because we do not have health insurance to pay for this hospital bed.

No problem on the first three checklist items. But the blood keeps coming. He lost a pint during surgery, so he's on a drip.

I smell blood, blood. It seems to be coming from my nose, but this is because I'm smelling his blood.

And he cannot breathe through his nose - it's packed with wadding until Monday. The blood saturated the wadding. He can't sneeze, he can't blow his nose, he can't breathe. And he coughs up bloody mucous, and his voice gurgles.

Finally the bleeding slows down enough and they let us go.

MESSY BEGINNINGS

Kathy n i for European flow are thinking a few weeks in England to attend the Rainbow Gathering, awhile in Amsterdam, awhile in Spain, then visit Prague on the way to stay a bit in Lithuania. any suggestions welcome.anyone in England have any camping gear to rent?we also have to leave our cat 3PO behind ... other cats intimidate him. again, any suggestions welcome.went to hospital 6 this morning - got home 5:30 this afternoon. wanted to keep me there. said no. now for 4 days i have cotton packed nose until doc removes. i don't believe this whole thing is much fun. don't recommend it.

brand new drug combo for me - & it's all legal: vicodin for pain, steroids for swelling, antibiotics for the rest. snorted a lot of speed in the 60s, and cocaine in the 90s... perhaps they contributed to the extreme nose polyp growth - literally filled up my nasal passages - had to scrap them from the underside of my brain pan. fortunately i've quit everything axcept coffee and grass, am working on phasing out both ! ?

heavy alcohol use from 1975 thru 1991 tried to kill me. snorting speed from 1968 thru 1997 tried to kill me. freebasing (smoking homemade crack) in the early 1980s tried to kill me. snorting cocaine in the 1990s tried to kill me. smoking marijuana from 1968 thru today seems to be trying to kill me. figure i give all these things up, walk around with a clean pure body, and i'll get hit by a truck. so it goes. figure meat's next.