Thierry Sagnier's Blog, page 21

Minou and Me

I've always wanted to be a writer of fiction. For me, there is no higher calling. My father was a journalist; my mother wrote a couple of beautiful children’s books, and was instrumental in the creation of Babar the Elephant. My late sister, Florence, wrote novels of such typical Frenchness that she was compared to Francoise Sagan and she could never find readers elsewhere than in Paris.
When I was a child in that city, the kids my age played cowboys and Indians and while they became small Gallic Roy Rogers and Hoplaong Cassidys, I surreptitiously copied the poems of Minou Drouet and claimed them as my own.
You probably haven't heard of the child poet, Minou Drouet.
In 1955, she astounded France—and a good part of Europe—by writing charmingly adult poems. A literary brouhaha followed. Was she real? How could she, at the tender age of six, write such moving lines? Were the verses penned by adults?
Charles Templeton, a CBS reporter, recalls: “Minou Drouet's mother was a prostitute and her father a field hand. As an infant she was taken into the home of a middle-aged woman, whose ambition to write well exceeded her talents. She adopted the child and raised her with love, surrounding her with music in a home dedicated to literature. It appeared that Minou was retarded. At six she hadn't spoken a word. The judgment of four doctors was that she would never be normal.
“One day, Minou’s adoptive mother played a recording of a Brahms symphony for her. Minou swooned. When she was revived, she spoke perfect French in complex sentences. Shortly thereafter she began to write poetry. Some of the poems were published and immediately provoked debate. It was said that no child of six could possibly have such thoughts, much less express them so profoundly. It was argued that, unlike music, poetry demands an experience of life, experience that no child so young could have had. It was charged that her adoptive mother—an aspiring poet herself who sought recognition but had been judged second-rate—was the author of the verses.
“The controversy became a cause célèbre. The French Academy of Arts and Sciences decided on an experiment to validate or to dismiss the claims made for the child. Minou was placed in a room behind one-way glass. She was provided with paper and pencil, and after she was alone and incommunicado, given three subjects to write about. She did as she was instructed and the results were scrutinized. There could be no question; the poems were the product of a prodigious talent. Jean Cocteau, the eminent writer and film-maker, commented: ‘She's not an eight-year-old child, she's an eight-year-old dwarf.’”
I was about five years old when I copied some of Minou's lesser poems in longhand onto my cahier d' école and showed them to my mother who, herself an author, thought she too might have a genius on her hands. She called her friends, who called their friends. Could there be a male Minou in the Sagnier household?
In no time, things got out of hand and I could see serious and dire consequences. I confessed the truth. It was possibly the hardest thing I ever had to do in my very brief life, and I decided there and then that, no matter what, whatever I wrote would be my own from then on.
It may have been a mistake to choose a writing career. According to surveys, the average income of a fiction writer—if you include the Internet folks and the superstars like Stephen King—is $512 a year. That's not even fried-egg-sandwich money...
David Robins, author of The War of the Rats and many other readable novels, likes to say there are fewer fiction writers making a full-time living at their craft than there are professional football players in the game. So it's a rarefied atmosphere. It's also, I believe, the most fun a man who refuses to grow up can have.
Fiction writing, I can tell you with great authority, is not for grown-ups. It is for people who refuse to accept the realities of life and prefer to create their own worlds, which anyone is welcome to visit. My experience is that for the most part, though many enjoy dropping by, few stay there long.
I love fiction. I am not, however, an informed writer. I never read writing magazines. I don't subscribe to the New York Times Book Review. I frankly don't give much of a hoot what a reviewer may think of a particular novel, and I generally distrust reviewers anyway. Up until a short time ago, I neither wrote nor read short stories, and I don't spend a lot of time on the Internet looking at the fiction that's there. I do attend a couple of writers’ groups and host one in my home; I would recommend such gatherings to anyone interested in the craft.
I write fiction because creating and peopling my own worlds with characters I have brought to life is, by and large, more fun than dealing with the world I'm really in. When I finished writing my first novel, The IFO Report, my characters held a party for me. Now admittedly, I’d had a few drinks to celebrate the event, a not uncommon activity back then, but still, there they were, all the lead players of my opus, telling me exactly what they thought of me and my work, and how I could have done better by them.
I like the people I invent. After a while, they become my friends and, as any writer who has gone through the process will tell you, they take on a life of their own. You get to be a god, or a somewhat smaller version of deity. Can there be anything loftier cooler than that?
I’ve had other careers. I worked for a United Nations agency more than a decade, and was a counselor for several years. I wrote for newspapers, magazines, television and radio, and my stuff was published both here and overseas. All of it was interesting, and some of it was fascinating. I probably made more money in one year with the UN than in a decade of fiction writing.
It doesn’t matter. Fiction is my vocation.

Maury's Return

Maury was back at the coffee shop after a brief absence. Without much of an introduction, he asked, “Can you get me a bagel? Plain? Cream cheese?”
This had never happened before. Maury is not a moocher. He can make a small cup of coffee last an entire morning, and I’ve never seen him ask for a handout. I got the bagel and brought it to where he was sprawled in his favorite chair in front of the gas fireplace. He thanked me, then added, “I’m an old man, you know. I may not be here tomorrow. Or the day after.”
This is one of Maury’s favorite topics of conversation. He’s possibly a decade younger than I am, a big balding guy with broad shoulders and a slight stoop, and as far as I can tell, he’s in adequately good health.
“An old man,” he said it again with a smile and not a trace of sadness. “I could die any minute.” He repeated this with an emphasis on on the word any. Then he added, “And you could too.”
I agreed. “We’re all on the same road.”
Lately, I’ve been feeling mortal; the chemo treatments have got me down. There are two more coming up, at which point the doctor will decide if more are called for. This most recent course is particularly nasty, far worse than what I’ve dealt with before. I’m listless and sore; I can’t keep food down, and my sleep is troubled by unappetizing dreams and visions I avoid during the day. I am tempted to skip the whole chemo thing but deep down know I won’t. Some years ago, after the first diagnosis, surgery, and chemical infusions, I asked the doctor what would happen if I refused treatment. Without looking up from my medical chart said, “You’ll suffer a lot and then die.” My doctor did not mince words (I once sent him a Valentine card that read:
“I’m glad you’re my doctor,
I would be much sadder
If you were not here to
Take care of my bladder.”
He never mentioned receiving it but the nurses said he did, chuckled out loud, and pinned it on his office wall.)
Anyway.
Last week Maurie told me he was getting married to a woman in California. The problem was she didn’t want to come here and he didn’t want to go there.
“I’m not much in favor of those long-distance relationships,” he said. “But I do want to get married.”
The week before, Maurie sidled up to me, used two fingers to check the quality of the leather jacket I was wearing, and said, “I like that jacket.”
“You can’t give it to him,” said Arielle. “I like that jacket too.”
I didn’t and instead found a roughly similar jacket in my closet, a twenty-year-old extra-large that I’d worn to faded glory. I thought it might fit him, so for a while I kept it in the car every time I went to the coffee shop. Finally, a couple of days ago, i brought it back indoors. That was the same day Maurie reappeared.
“I have a jacket for you,” I told him as he eyed mine enviously. “I brought it in a couple of times but you weren’t here.”
He eyed me as if I were a dolt. “I can’t be here all the time, you know. I have things to do,” he said. That’s when he asked or the bagel.
Then he segued into other issues. He focused a few minutes on the romantic status of a woman whose partner had passed away recently. Maury had told me I should date her since she was now used to having boyfriends who died. I remember this exchange as one of the odder conversations I’ve add in recent years.
I suspect he’s been reading my blog; he appears relatively well caught up on the state of my health. About five months ago he said, “Cancer is really nasty. It kills people.”
I answered that I knew this. There was a time when I did a lot research on the Internet. I’ve pretty much ceased that.
“Lots of people.” Maury often speaks in italics, occasionally in underlines, rarely in bold.
I’ve given Maury oracular powers. Maybe that wasn’t wise,.

Old Habits

I still routinely open doors for women—car doors, restaurant doors, front doors. I am both old and old school, raised in Europe where, among the middle bourgeoisie, it would be inconceivable to sit for dinner before the woman of the house does so, boorish to not carry her parcels, and uncouth to climb stairs ahead of her.
To this day I walk on the outside, even if the likelihood of a runaway coach is slim. I know as well, that treading on a lady's right was to protect her from refuse thrown out of windows. I am aware that few people use chamber pots nowadays, and even fewer would discard the contents onto the sidewalk below where a woman might step.
My father and mother taught me a list of things to do and not do in the presence of the opposite sex. Pull out her chair, rise when she does, help her on and off with her coat. I have already forsworn many of these actions, with great difficulty. If a woman you are introduced to is single, you may shake her hand. If she is married, a kiss on the back of her right hand is mandatory, though everyone knows that actually, you do not kiss the hand at all, you kiss your own thumb, judiciously placed as you bow and raise her hand to your lips. This backfired on me once. I was attending an embassy party in Washington, and an American matron whom I did not know approached. I was introduced to her, raised her hand to my lips, and she punched me in the nose. Perhaps she thought I wanted to bite her.
Some months back, I was in a store with a woman friend who found my commandeering the shopping cart somewhat disconcerting. I had done so without thinking. I told her I did not want to incur the wrath of my late, very European father, whose designated job was to follow my mother around, holding the goods she purchased. He was not alone; when I was a kid the streets of Paris and particularly the shopping districts were always full of men struggling beneath towers of boxes and large shopping bags. They never complained.
I believe many of the ancient rules of politeness and behavior originated not in courtliness but from an intuitive male knowledge that, all told, women are far more important to the survival of society than men. Assisting them is not so much an act of propriety as a small step in fostering continued existence. Men, by their very natures, are disposable if not downright obsolete. Women, on the other hand, are still mothers, the heralds of the future.
I do understand that times have changed radically, and that yesterday's manners may seem today's affectations, but all recognize that bad examples are being set at every level of society from sports stars to TV personalities; professional workers to trades people; politicians to public servants. This is not a good trend. It dehumanizes us, makes crudity and poor conduct an accepted norm. We are already mired in mediocrity; why look for the lowest common denominator as acceptable?
I respect the changing face of civility, but I do not necessarily approve of it.
My friend Arielle, who has at times called me old, describes herself as—and is—a fiercely independent woman. She occasionally smiles indulgently as I attempt to apply old learned behavior to new environments. Arielle as a norm walk about with sixty pounds of varied property spread between an ever-present knapsack and a largish cloth bag. I have tried on numerous occasion to lend a hand with these encumbrances and been met with ferocious, almost feral, resistance. “Help me with something useful,” she says. “I can carry my own bag.”
Well, okay. That was never in question.
The ascendance of the LBGT movement is likely to further confuse one mired in the old ways. I shall have to tailor my behavior a bit more. 
My wonderful friend Anne, an older lady who passed away weeks ago, knew how to perform the dance of civility with skill. Many of my younger women acquaintances appear to see what I consider basic politeness as an attempt to abase them, diminish their choices, or dilute their right to self-determination. I don’t think that’s the case at all.
I have no intentions of changing, and, more to the point would gladly lead a return to the politeness of another century. I still find it proper to kiss a matron's hand, even if once in a while, the practice earns me a bloody nose.
 
 I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.

Banging One's Head Against the Low Ceiling of Your Own Talent

Some days it’s easier to write than others.
About a week ago I woke up with the germ of an idea for a book I‘ve been working on. Nothing earthshaking, just an agreeable little plot twist that might have amused readers. By late that afternoon I’d come to realize either the idea initially had no legs, or it had lost its appeal in the hours between six in the morning and midnight. Or perhaps my mood changed, and what looked inviting early was simply dimmed.
This happens routinely. Writing is, for better or for worse, an emotional endeavor, one based on frustration and, often, undefinable blues. I know a few content writers, but their output so far has been limited. The ones with issues, with subcutaneous melancholy, with angst over yesterday and tomorrow, those writers full of fears and uncertainty about what the upcoming hours will bring, they seem to produce stuff by the reams. Not necessarily good stuff, mind you, just lots of stuff.
Georges Simenon once said that “writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness.”  If this is true (and I sometimes believe it is), then one must ask, why write? Normal people don’t have a need to tidy their thoughts so they can be wrestled upon a page and thrust, unwanted, upon others. Perhaps this is yet another addiction, albeit a marginally socially acceptable one.
Pondering such imponderables can rapidly escalate one’s discontent with the process. Is there anything as unglamorous as hunting and pecking at a keyboard all day in the hope something worthwhile will emerge?
Simon Brett, a bestselling writer, wrote in the quarterly Journal of the Society of Authors that, “When the writing’s going well, the author’s is the perfect life. When it’s going badly, there’s no one else to blame.” He believes that, “writers feed on themselves. It’s an emotional business. A new idea, a surge of energy that lasts a paragraph, a page, a chapter, can make you feel you’re producing the definitive work that is going to redefine the parameters of the novel as an art form. Yet within a sentence, when the right phrase won’t come, you can be in total despair and about to scrap the whole project.”
And then of course, writing is solitary work. There’s no feedback, no attaboy, no reason to doubt that only an overactive ego might claim that anything produced is worth reading. I know, for example, that in the last few years, I’ve stopped hounding most of my friends to read my stuff. This came after I realized the request was tantamount to asking they give their time to do something they might not enjoy. That’s how thoughts pattern themselves initially. Realistically, who knows, readers might enjoy my work, but this isn’t the concept to emerge first, if ever. (Which of course makes the blog an ideal vehicle. Bloggers don’t ask people to read them. They simply hurl their stuff against a virtual wall and rarely even know what sticks.)  
Additionally, writing is a day-at-a-time process that must begin anew each morning regardless of one’s outlook on life. Says Brett, “For most writers, any time spent away from the keyboard or pad of paper is basically cheating. You should be writing.”
But of course can’t write all the time. Brett quotes Michael Ratcliffe in a Times review of Graham Greene, “Writing itself, of course, is an ideal form of escape, unless you happen to be a writer, in which case there comes a time when you have to escape from writing, too.”
This is difficult for a lot of us. Our characters are more interesting than we are, their adventures more captivating, their dialogues wittier than anything we might have to say in ordinary conversation. Probably, they’re younger, more vital and better looking as well, and more attractive to the opposite sex. “Eventually,” writes Brett, “you’re going to have to get back to reality. Because, apart from sometimes being the most fun you can imagine, writing fiction is also the most exhausting activity you’re ever going to undertake.”
And another thing: There is no guarantee what was written with grand expectations today will be seen tomorrow in the same light. I can probably count on fingers and toes the pages written that, later, I still believe are as good as the day they were born. (This has other ramifications. Most writers see both the permanence and ephemerae or words, written and spoken. What I am told Tuesday may not hold Wednesday.)  
The trade is riddled with failure, and “authors who feel they’ve failed don’t have to look far for confirmation of that opinion,” says Brett. “Bestsellers lists are everywhere, bulging with the names of other writers. As if the living weren’t bad enough, you also have the genius of the dead to contend with. Cast your eye along your bookshelves. It doesn’t take long, looking at names like, Austen, Dumas, Tolstoy or Wodehouse, to feel your head banging against the low ceiling of your own talent.”
In spite of all this dire stuff, writing remains the art of hope. Most of us know one or two authors who’ve made it, who travel to the south of France yearly and get six-figure checks and the adulation of readers. We hope to transcend ourselves, to obtain with our creations what we can’t find personally. We look to be revealed while hiding in our tale.
I’m certain most writers would be willing to be left behind if only their works could forge ahead.
 
 I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.

On Writing, Again

Some days it’s easier to write than others.
About a week ago I woke up with the germ of an idea for a book I‘ve been working on. Nothing earthshaking, just an agreeable little plot twist that might have amused readers. By late that afternoon I’d come to realize either the idea initially had no legs, or it had lost its appeal in the hours between six in the morning and midnight. Or perhaps my mood changed, and what looked inviting early was simply dimmed.
This happens routinely. Writing is, for better or for worse, an emotional endeavor, one based on frustration and, often, undefinable blues. I know a few content writers, but their output so far has been limited. The ones with issues, with subcutaneous melancholy, with angst over yesterday and tomorrow, those writers full of fears and uncertainty about what the upcoming hours will bring, they seem to produce stuff by the reams. Not necessarily good stuff, mind you, just lots of stuff.
Georges Simenon once said that “writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness.” If this is true (and I sometimes believe it is), then one must ask, why write? Normal people don’t have a need to tidy their thoughts so they can be wrestled upon a page and thrust, unwanted, upon others. Perhaps this is yet another addiction, albeit a marginally socially acceptable one.
Pondering such imponderables can rapidly escalate one’s discontent with the process. Is there anything as unglamorous as hunting and pecking at a keyboard all day in the hope something worthwhile will emerge?
Simon Brett, a bestselling writer, wrote in the quarterly Journal of the Society of Authors that, “When the writing’s going well, the author’s is the perfect life. When it’s going badly, there’s no one else to blame.” He believes that, “writers feed on themselves. It’s an emotional business. A new idea, a surge of energy that lasts a paragraph, a page, a chapter, can make you feel you’re producing the definitive work that is going to redefine the parameters of the novel as an art form. Yet within a sentence, when the right phrase won’t come, you can be in total despair and about to scrap the whole project.”
And then of course, writing is solitary work. There’s no feedback, no attaboy, no reason to doubt that only an overactive ego might claim that anything produced is worth reading. I know, for example, that in the last few years, I’ve stopped hounding most of my friends to read my stuff. This came after I realized the request was tantamount to asking they give their time to do something they might not enjoy. That’s how thoughts pattern themselves initially. Realistically, who knows, readers might enjoy my work, but this isn’t the concept to emerge first, if ever. (Which of course makes the blog an ideal vehicle. Bloggers don’t ask people to read them. They simply hurl their stuff against a virtual wall and rarely even know what sticks.)
Additionally, writing is a day-at-a-time process that must begin anew each morning regardless of one’s outlook on life. Says Brett, “For most writers, any time spent away from the keyboard or pad of paper is basically cheating. You should be writing.”
But of course can’t write all the time. Brett quotes Michael Ratcliffe in a Times review of Graham Greene, “Writing itself, of course, is an ideal form of escape, unless you happen to be a writer, in which case there comes a time when you have to escape from writing, too.”
This is difficult for a lot of us. Our characters are more interesting than we are, their adventures more captivating, their dialogues wittier than anything we might have to say in ordinary conversation. Probably, they’re younger, more vital and better looking as well, and more attractive to the opposite sex. “Eventually,” writes Brett, “you’re going to have to get back to reality. Because, apart from sometimes being the most fun you can imagine, writing fiction is also the most exhausting activity you’re ever going to undertake.”
And another thing: There is no guarantee what was written with grand expectations today will be seen tomorrow in the same light. I can probably count on fingers and toes the pages written that, later, I still believe are as good as the day they were born. (This has other ramifications. Most writers see both the permanence and ephemerae or words, written and spoken. What I am told Tuesday may not hold Wednesday.)
The trade is riddled with failure, and “authors who feel they’ve failed don’t have to look far for confirmation of that opinion,” says Brett. “Bestsellers lists are everywhere, bulging with the names of other writers. As if the living weren’t bad enough, you also have the genius of the dead to contend with. Cast your eye along your bookshelves. It doesn’t take long, looking at names like, Austen, Dumas, Tolstoy or Wodehouse, to feel your head banging against the low ceiling of your own talent.”
In spite of all this dire stuff, writing remains the art of hope. Most of us know one or two authors who’ve made it, who travel to the south of France yearly and get six-figure checks and the adulation of readers. We hope to transcend ourselves, to obtain with our creations what we can’t find personally. We look to be revealed while hiding in our tale.
I’m certain most writers would be willing to be left behind if only their works could forge ahead.

Anne, Part II

The family memorial for my friend Anne, who died two weeks ago, was held yesterday in the back yard of her house. Anne was a fortunate woman; she and her husband had purchased their home many decades ago, and chosen it partly because it backed onto protected county land that had a creek and a swimming hole.
Anne was a one-man woman. She met her husband-to-be in 1955 when she was doing graduate work in Germany. They married shortly thereafter. Paul Raymond, a self-described Okie, died in 1974; Anne never remarried after his death
Anne raised her children in this home, and then her grandchildren. She also became the unofficial caretakers of neighborhood kids who got into trouble or whose lives at their own homes were treacherous. The kids did their homework at her house, ate there and spent the night. She was their advocate and defender.
Yesterday’s service was lovely. It was a sunny day in McLean, Virginia. Her daughter Kristin is an accomplished classical violinist, and a quartet played some of Anne’s favorite music. A few stories were told; tears and smiles shed and exchanged. There were beautiful grandchildren holding each other. Visitors toured the home, Anne’s personal museum of an existence well and fully lived.   
I said a few words and realized the futility of trying to encapsulate a life within an anecdote or two. There were too many stories and not enough time.
Anne, as I’ve written before, was a grande dame, which does not translate to a grand dame. It means she had an innate elegance that defied life’s demands, including the health issues she struggled with in her last decade. Had she been British, one might have said she was the very portrayal of a stiff upper lip. But she wasn’t British, she was a Californian through and through, and I don’t know what the term is for California steadfastness.
The surgeries she underwent shortly before her death hit her hard. The anesthesia caused long-term confusion, and during one visit she looked at me and said, “I’m going to pay you! Of course I’m going to pay you.”  I’m not sure what she was referring to, or whether she thought I might be someone else. She was far more lucid another time, and worried about filing her taxes.
Even in her last days in her hospital bed, once the anesthetic had fully worn off, and, I suspect, she knew the end was near, she emanated a sense of serenity I can admit I envy.
A person ceases to exist when his or her name is mentioned one last time.
I hope Anne is spoken of often.
   I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.

Maury's Chair

When Maury came to the coffee shop this morning, he found his regular chair in front of the fireplace taken by a slim older man wearing a baseball cap and reading the Post.
Maury stood stock still for maybe 30 seconds, and then looked at me. I was sitting in a booth a dozen feet away, peeling an orange. He caught my eye. I shrugged, a What Can You Do? message. He made a face and bobbed his head.
He went outside and, as he usually does, began picking scraps of paper from the sidewalk and putting them in a city trash can. There’s a new crop of litter every morning, and Maury sees it as his job to tend to it.
He returned five minutes later.  The slim man was still there. Maury filled his coffee mug, came to my table, smiled crookedly and asked, “How’s the cancer?”
That’s an unusual question, but not from Maury, who once suggested I start dating a woman whose boyfriend had just died. “Okay, I guess,” I said, but Maury wasn’t listening. The man in his chair was stirring, perhaps preparing to go.
“Good,” said Maury. “That’s good.” The man in the chair did not leave but instead picked up the Post Metro section. Maury sighed, left his coffee cup on my table and headed for the men’s room.
While he was there, the slim man packed up his newspaper and left. As soon as he did, another coffee shop regular slid into Maury’s chair.
Maury returned from the bathroom and paid scant attention to the new usurper. He asked me, “So the cancer’s good?” Then he added, “Not peeing blood, I hope.”
Um. Where does Maury get his info? I KNOW I never mentioned the particulars of my case to him. I said, “Why do you ask?”
Maury pulled a chair to my table even though the booth bench across from me was vacant. “I peed blood once, for a week,” Maury said. “I went to see the doctor and he said it was a yutee.”
“Pardon?” 
“A yutee. A urinary tract infection. He gave me pills. I peed bright orange for a while; it was strange. But the yutee went away.”
I offered him half my orange. He took it and carefully separated the wedges, then lifted off the white stuff that sticks even after the fruit is peeled.
He ate… mournfully is the only word I can come up with. His eyes were beagle sad and his jaw worked methodically. Between wedges he said, “I was really scared” (chew chew) the first time it happened (chew chew). The peeing, I mean (chew swallow). I thought I was maybe dying (chew chew), but  I wasn’t.”  
When he was through with the orange, he took a sip of coffee and wiped his mouth with a napkin. He looked at me and asked, “Are you scared?”
I said I was, sort of.
The man in Maury’s chair got up. Maury made to hurry there but stopped. He patted me on the shoulder, gave my arm a gentle squeeze.  “Don’t be,” he said. “It’s gonna be all right.”
He settled into his chair, put his feet up on the fireplace lintel, and gave me a thumb up.
Everything’s gonna be all right.
  I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.

No. 10

The tumor is small, the size of a lentil. It’s greyish in the Pepto-Bismol pink of my innards, and it probably has not been there long. Still, I’d hoped the test this morning would find me clean, so it’s a disappointment. I’ve been free almost a year from the bladder cancer first diagnosed in 2012, and now I’m angry, a bit sad, resentful and frustrated. I’m also aware that it could have been far, far worse.  A very dear friend was diagnosed with the same illness a month ago, and his intervention was truly grim. More than two weeks in the hospital sucking on ice cubes and unable to digest food, and complications that, when he described them, made me blanch.
My surgery will be very minor in comparison, an outpatient event that probably and thankfully will not involve a catheter, followed by five weeks of chemotherapy. The latter worries me a bit. My earlier experiences with chemo left me exhausted and sometimes nauseous for a day or two following the procedure. Then there’s the attendant and largely inexplicable sense of shame, and that of being soiled. I’d been working on that for a year and felt I had it licked, but now it’s back. Whenever the tests come back positive, I come out feeling like an untouchable.
I took my frustrations out on a Fanta truck lumbering in front of me on my way home from the clinic. I unleashed a barrage of profanities in two languages, some explicit French and American hand gestures, and a curse on all Fanta drinkers. I shed a tear or four, being the sensitive guy that I am, but by the time I’d finished my quad shot decaf espresso at Panera and wolfed down a bagel, I had quieted down somewhat.
I’m upset because I thought I was done with this. Even after four years, it remains scary. It didkill my oldest sister because she was not diagnosed early enough, and I know several people who’ve been afflicted by it. I’m angry, as well, because I’d hoped to be able to go from three-month tests to six-month tests; I have to be clean eighteen months before the protocol changes.
I don’t like life interfering like this. I have things to do, people to see. There are new writing projects, books to finish and blogs to write.
This will be the tenth operation. One of my concerns is that being put under that many times can’t be good for me. I always come out of the anesthesia feeling as if I’ve been hit by a semi. Everything hurts. My right arm and left wrist get bruised from the IVs, and other parts hurt from the actual procedure, which involves sharp little blades being thrust up the urethra. My throat is sore from the tube thrust down there for reasons that are still unclear. Also, I’m wobbly. My knees and legs feel weak. I will pee a lot and often, and it will be painful.
I generally return home and stomp around. I feed the cat. I water the plants. I do useless things, laundering two pairs of socks and a tee-shirt, dusting the top of the DVD shelves and restacking books by area of interest and language. I call a couple of people, or sometimes I don’t.  This is getting to be old hat.
 The cat looks at me strangely, then recognizes the pattern. He’ll do pirouettes around my feet, climb on the bed and lay on my chest while breathing cat food fumes up my nose.
I really hate this disease.
Crap.I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.

Anne Shirk

My friend Anne died yesterday. She was a lady of the old school, proud and upright in the face of illness, generous and kind, and forthright in bearing and opinion.
I met Anne some fifteen years ago. Like many women of her time, she smoked like a chimney back then. She liked to refer to herself as a “tough old broad,” and had a laugh that went from cackle to guffaw.  She smiled a lot.
Anne was the last director of IVS, the International Volunteer Services, an NGO that sent young men and women to developing countries to assist locals in largely agricultural and irrigation projects. IVS was the model for the Peace Corps. Anne was an indefatigable promoter of her organization, which was largely apolitical though there were heated moments among volunteers during the Vietnam War.
Three years ago she decided she wanted to have a book written about the people with whom she had served. She asked me if I’d be interested in writing it and I anticipated a three-month assignment. Dozens of former volunteers sent in their recollections, and I spent more than two years editing these and stitching them together under her tutelage and that of three other former IVSers. I called them The Gang of Four, which she knew from the first and found somewhat accurate and amusing.
The initial plan was for a brief book with some photos, to be self-published and distributed from one of the Gang’s basement. The end result was The Fortunate Few, IVS Volunteers from Asia to the Andes, 370 pages put out by NCNM Press and available on Amazon. It’s a good book that will be around for a while and commemorates the work of people who should not be forgotten.
While the book was being put together, Anne and I would go to lunch once or twice a month. As she became frailer, she would grab my arm and lean on me, fearful of missteps, and carping a bit but never too much about growing physical limitations. She was a student of history who had served overseas with her husband and family, and we exchanged travel stories.. She almost always picked up the check. “I like to help impoverished writers,” she’d say, and I learned in time that she really did mean that.
Up until the very end, she drove her Toyota, sometimes haphazardly, and met the dangerous challenge of backing out of my driveway.  Sometimes I closed my eyes as she did so, persuaded the end was imminent.
Anne was widowed many years ago and lived alone in a large house not far from my home. She was incredibly proud of her children and their accomplishments. She thought her kids were the smartest and most talented in the world and was never embarrassed to say so. The family was center and nexus of her life.
I’ll miss her. She was among the last of a fast-disappearing generation forged by World War II and strengthened by adversity, and she was my friend. Thank you Anne, and rest in peace.
 I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.

Cops

Every month or so for the past half-a-year, a policeman hides behind a bush in my front yard. He wields one of those radar guns that measure a car’s speed and issues tickets to scofflaws. I welcome him. The last decade has seen a rapid increase of traffic on my suburban street with commuters often traveling at twice the posted speed limit. Back in 2008, a little kid from across the way wandered from his yard and into traffic. I dashed out and grabbed him and a pickup truck missed us by inches. The driver never slowed down.
Occasionally at night I hear cars drag racing down the street. It’s a straight shot, an almost ideal quarter-mile track and the boy (and for all I know girl) racers love revving their engines and taking off in a cloud or spinning tires smoke. I’m pleased to say the cop is welcome to my driveway. He has become somewhat of a friend. I’ve brought him coffee on freezing days and a donut once, on the assumption that all cops like donuts. He seemed to.
My history with policemen, though, is not all that positive. Back in an earlier millennium when I covered anti-Vietnam War demonstrations for the Washington Post, a cop almost shot me in the head. Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, was there with me and might have saved my life. He pushed the gun aside, yelled “PRESS! PRESS!” and got us out of there. To this day I remember that policeman’s face. He was bright red and sweating; his eyes were unfocused and he literally foamed at the mouth.
Some years later I got stopped for driving a motorcycle with an expired license in downtown DC. The young cop handcuffed me tightly and pushed me into a cell. I lost circulation in both hands. The demented screams of guy in the same cell forced another policeman to check on us. He loosened the cuffs but I couldn’t move my left hand for a couple of days.
There have been a couple of other incidents in which I was involved that left me worried over policemen’s abilities to handle stress. On Christmas day last year, I went to the movies with a friend and we saw a homeless man sheltering himself from the rain at the entrance of a mall. He was surrounded by six police people wearing armored vests, and one had his gun out. I wondered why this standoff was necessary. When we left the mall, the homeless man and his possessions were gone.
All in all, my appreciation for cops has grown somewhat as I’ve gotten older. I recognize that police work is sometimes dangerous and often thankless, but I also worry about the training—or lack thereof—that police personnel get to handle tricky situations. There have been cops shooting unarmed people close to my home. That’s frightening. The fact that more often than not the victims are minority is even more disturbing.     
But the cop in my driveway? I say go for it, Officer Friendly. Nail the scofflaws and speeders and idiots that pass me on the right doing fifty in a twenty-five mile school zone. Give them big-time tickets, suspend their licenses and confiscate their cars.
There are more ways than one to make my neighborhood safer.  I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.