Drew Myron's Blog, page 31

Age, Illness, and Muddling Through

[image error]  A fundamental problem with our current
health care system is that its measure of success
is the delay of death, rather than the quality of life. 

— Ai-hen Poo 
from The Age of Dignity:
Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America 

 

Age and illness consume me.

And that's not a bad thing. My attention, and my reading, is centered around calls for change.*

With health care in general it seems we're muddling through, hoping our leaders will choose the least cruel of options. To that quagmire, add the  "silver tsunami" and we're in a real mire. Medicine, health insurance, hospital visits, long-term care, assisted living, home care — these costs add up, and quick!  Even if you've saved, you can't save enough.

Am I scaring you? I'm overwhelmed too. 

I've seen the physical and emotional impact that sickness and aging has on individuals and families. In my work at the nursing home, and in my own family, we wrestle with questions that have no good answers: what's covered? what's not? who pays? how much? What, really, is quality of life? Who decides? 

There are no rules. Each situation, just like each family, is nuanced with its own needs and expectations. Feeling adrift, I turn to books (again and always), for direction, solace, suggestions: 

Here are a few — each very different in tone and style — that I've found helpful:  

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

Bettyville: A Memoir 

 

Your turn: Are you confronting these issues? What's helped? What hasn't? 

 

* Sidenote: I'm healthy! Everyone else is falling apart. (kidding) (not kidding). 

Thankful Thursday: Passively Active

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It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things & more. Joy expands and contracts in relation to our gratitude. From small to super-size, from puny to profound, tell me, what are you thankful for today? 

 

It's summer. We now have permission to live passively active. Y'know, loll in hammocks, dawdle through books, sip cold drinks. As always, I'm thankful for these deliciously long sun-drenched "lazy does it" days. 

On this Thankful Thursday, I'm grateful for these nuggets of discovery:  

1.
Reading is a form of meditation

I've never been able to meditate. Sustaining good posture while enduring admonishments to clear the mind turn me fidgety and resentful. But now, I discover, I've been meditating all along:   

"Reading is one of the fastest and easiest ways to reduce stress. Research shows listening to music reduces stress by 61 percent, going for a walk by 42 percent, drinking a cup of tea by 54 percent, but reading reduces stress levels by 68 percent" (according to this book, for which I'm also thankful).

2. 
Stamps as art

Have you seen the new stamps honoring designer Oscar de la Renta? (Of course you have because of course you write letters). Aren't they beauties? Makes me want to create long, confessional correspondence. Or even better, makes me want to open a letter addressed to me and adorned with this pretty postage. 

3. 
The world loves you 

 Here's proof:

“The secret is that the world loves you in direct  proportion to how much you love it.”

— Laura Kasischke

 

Your turn: What are you thankful for today?  

 

Thankful Thursday: I Am But A Dustpan

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1.
I haven't written in a while because I don't want to talk about my aching feet and how too many people have told me it's my fault because I wear high heels but they don't know that shoes are the only thing that always fit (until your bunion takes over) and I don't want to be the kind of person who chooses sensible over stylish.

2.
So I'm sorry, I don't want to bring you down or talk about the things I can't stop thinking about: the hard work and low pay of the (mostly) women who feed, wipe, bathe, dress and care for people so late in their lives and so ill that there are few people left that can care for them. 

I can't stop thinking about the craggy chasm between these (mostly) young women scraping by and the (mostly) old men at the wheel of our lives, making laws and revoking essentials, leaving dignity like a broken down car at the edge of the cliff. I don't want to talk about justice and compassion, those Boy Scout words that now seem as antiquated as landlines and paper maps.

3.
There are calls for our greater selves to surface, to act. Am I obligated to resist, resist, resist? 

Empathy is a verb. But so is resignation. 

4.
I don't want to bother you with the way my body is leaden with these thoughts and how I've turned inward and slow, how I've read three self-help books in one week and feel none the better.

Everything is a project, and I've run out of gas, will, wine. 

5.
My neighbor, a kind older man who keeps a meticulous lawn, comes looking for me. He hasn't seen me lately, he says. "Are you okay?" 

And just like that I want to tell you that big sweeps are for grand rooms, and I am but a dustpan able to clean a small space. I am cared for and cared about. I love and am loved, and doesn't that erase, or ease, or relax for just a minute this fist I am shaking at the world? 

6.
At the nursing home one of my favorite Bettys (a popular name among the geriatric generation) asks me again and again, "Where am I supposed to be?" 

"Right here," I say, reaching for her hand. "You're right where you're supposed to be."

Her face softens, fear subsides. "Oh good," she sighs. 

We sit together in the quiet.

"You're a pretty girl," she says. 

I'm not a girl. I have bunions and jowls and I know it's not beauty she sees but a small pause of kindness, and I want to do everything I can to live up to her words. 

7.
This evening as the sun slips and the heat softens, I read a poem of just two lines. I can do that. Read, read, write. One line, a start. Let's not save the world, or even ourselves. Right now, in this warm glow, let's just be here, right where we belong. 

 

 

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things & more. Our joy contracts and expands in relation to our gratitude. Big or small, puny or profound, what are you thankful for today? 

 

* With gratitude to Rebecca Lindenberg, who wrote the poem pictured at top. It appears in The Logan Notebooks. 

 

Sunday Morning

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And when I wake up in the morning feeling love

And when I wake up in the morning with love

And when I wake up in the morning and feel love

And when I wake up in the morning already loving

How the body works to help us feel it

 

— Emmy Perez
from Rio Grande~Bravo 

 

Summer, Weight & Shame

Summer — my favorite time of the year!

And with it, the dreaded revealing of the BODY. All that winter weight crammed into jeans and hidden by sweaters is now bare, big, and fleshy. My body, a machine operating apart from my mind, is pale and loose, and there's too much of it.

Again. Still.

This is not new. This is my everyday routine — yours too? — in which I fight my body in an exhausting battle of wish and shame. It doesn't matter my size, the desire is the same:  slim, slender, thin, all the words that mean not me.

Those golden seasons, of the slim(mer) me, were short-lived and in retrospect I never felt as good as I now see I looked. That's the way, isn't it? We look back at photos and sigh, "Oh, I wasn't fat." 

But isn't this normal? Does every woman have an eating disorder? Not anorexia or bulimia, necessarily, but dis-order, dis-ease, unease, about food and body, value and worth?

Sure, there are days I feel active and strong, smart and creative, but isn't there some mind-body acceptance that lasts longer than the time it takes to get showered and dressed? An enduring sense of peace with this thing I carry day after day?

I've got no answers, but I like this poem:

Today I asked my body what she needed,

Which is a big deal

Considering my journey of

Not Really Asking That Much.

 

I thought she might need more water.

Or protein.

Or greens.

Or yoga.

Or supplements.

Or movement.

 

But as I stood in the shower

Reflecting on her stretch marks,

Her roundness where I would like flatness,

Her softness where I would like firmness,

All those conditioned wishes

That form a bundle of

Never-Quite-Right-Ness,

She whispered very gently:

 

Could you just love me like this?

  
—  Hollie Holden

 

And I like these words:

[image error]We can only really be known, and we can only really know, when we show our scars . . .

And everything that happens to us, everything that happens to us in our life, happens to our bodies. Every act of love, every insult, every moment of pleasure, every interaction with other humans, every hateful thing we have said, or which has been said to us, happens to our bodies. Every kindness, every sorrow, every ounce of laughter. We carry all of this, with us, in some form or another. We are walking embodiments of our entire story and the scars from that aren’t optional, but the shame from that is."

— Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, House for All Saints and Sinners, from Scarred and Resurrected: A Sermon on Our Human Bodies 

 

And lastly, this may be my summer anthem: 

 

Your turn. Let's talk:  How are you? Tell me about your body, your mind, your heart.

 

At Last

[image error]Eileen McKenna photo

 

The long wait

 

In that long slow

stretch between

 

late winter and

true spring

 

the sky stands static

and gray until

 

suddenly

the dogwood opens,

 

forming a choir

of blooms

 

every petal lifted

like hands in praise

 

and we are witness

to a miracle we

 

can finally

believe. 

 

- Drew Myron

 

Friends Give Me Books

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It doesn't take much to make me happy: sunshine, a good book, and people who give me books. (Is there a better gift than a book? I can only think of one: a letter, a letter tucked inside a good book). 

I'm happily immersed in books — books I would have never known had good people not shared their good books with me. The world really does turn on the exchange of words. 

 

Landmarks 
by Robert Macfarlane

Published in 2016, this book is lush, dense, poetic. Robert Macfarlane is a British academic, nature writer, and word lover who is working to restore the “literacy of the land.”  Landmarks, says The New York Times, "is part outdoor adventure story, part literary criticism, part philosophical disquisition, part linguistic excavation project, part mash note — a celebration of nature, of reading, of writing, of language and of people who love those things. . . "  That's me! 

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The Five Minute Journal
by Alex Ikonn and UJ Ramdas

I wasn't immediately thrilled with this gem. It's billed as "the simplest, most effective thing you can do every day to be happier." While given to me with love, I saw it as a unending homework assignment. Uggh. But I do like structure and lists, so I stepped up and gave it a try. And I'm "happy" to say this is a five-minute focus exercise that works! I don't do it everyday (there's only so many shoulds I can do and remain a pleasant person) but when I start my day with this journal I always feels better than when I don't. 

 

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Princess Pamela's Soul Food Cookbook
by Pamela Strobel

I'm not a foodie or a fancy cook, still I love the spirit of this book. Long out-of-print, after 45 years this treasure has been re-introduced as history lesson, poetry, and cookbook in one. Written in 1969, this is a collection of recipes from Pamela Strobel’s tiny soul food restaurant that thrived in New York's East Village in the 1960s. Orphaned at 10 years old, Strobel was just a teenager when she traveled north from South Carolina to New York to make a life for herself with her one skill: cooking. She pairs nearly every recipe with a poem, serving up a wonderful mix of food, love, religion, and race. With a recipe for tripe, for example, she offers this: 

Practically every kind of people

eat somethin' that somebody

else make a godawful face

at. If that don’ tellya what

this race-hatin’ is

all about, nuthin’ will.

In this life, we gotta give

ourselves a chance to digest a

lotta things we don’

understand right off. 

 

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The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
by Edward R. Tufte 

I am perplexed by this gift. It's more textbook dull than visual cool. Given to me by a designer friend, I know I'm holding an important work of another world but it's a world I don't fully understand. Still, I recognize a classic, so I plug along, puzzling over detailed graphs, elaborate tables, and engineer-ish illustrations. That's how it is with books that arrive as gifts, both giver and receiver are seen and revealed — and, really, that's a gift in itself.

 

Your turn. What are you reading? What books have you gifted, and what have you received? 

 

 

Try This: Where I'm From

 

Get out your pen and paper. Let's write!

Have you written a "Where I'm From" poem? For many young writers, this form is their first taste of writing poetry. The teacher passes out a template and the kids fill in the blanks to create their poem. 

Sounds like amateur hour, right? Yes, but stick with me. These poems are fun for all ages.

I recently attended a long and tedious professional conference (nothing to do with writing) and toward the end of the session the instructor handed out the tired old templates. I groaned but played along — and it turned out this short writing session was the best part of the day. 

So, yes, give it a try.  

 

Here's the template. Fill in the blanks: 

 

I am from _________________________
(specific ordinary item)

From _____________________________
(product name) 

and ______________________________ 
(product name)

I am from the _____________________
(home description)

I am from _________________________ 
(plant, flower, natural item)

I'm from __________________________
(family tradition) 

and ______________________________  
(family trait)

From _____________________________
(name of family member) 

and _______________________________ 
(another family name)

I'm from the ________________________ 
(description of family tendency)

and ________________________________ 
 (another one)

From _______________________________ 
(something you were told as a child)

and ________________________  (another)

I'm from _____________________________ 
(place of birth and family ancestry)

____________________________________ 
(a food item that represents your family)

____________________________________ 
(another one)

 

Feel free to condense, expand and rearrange your responses. Let this be the door that opens you to a poem. And then, let it take you even further. 

Poetry lore says this form was created in the 1990s by George Ella Lyon, Kentucky Poet Laureate 2015-2016.

"The process was too rich and too much fun to give up after only one poem," she explains on her website. "I decided to try it as an exercise with other writers, and it immediately took off. The list form is simple and familiar, and the question of where you are from reaches deep."

She offers this stellar advice:

"While you can revise (edit, extend, rearrange) your Where I'm From list into a poem, you can also see it as a corridor of doors opening onto further knowledge and other kinds of writing. The key is to let yourself explore these rooms. Don't rush to decide what kind of writing you're going to do or to revise or finish a piece. Let your goal be the writing itself. Learn to let it lead you."

 

Now, let's share. Here's my poem: 

 

Something will come

 

I am from Capn’ Crunch and Brady Bunch

from Love Boat and Little House

from Sun-In summers and waffle-stomp winters.

 

I’m from peace signs and dusty ferns

from cigarettes and scotch, apples and wheat

from sickness and grit

 

I’m from apartments rattled by railroad noise

from long walks to school and living

at the neighborhood pool.

 

I’m from big eaters and hard workers

from Bart and Lucy, Margaret and Andre

and Cindra, best sister and friend.

 

From Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado,

from inner-west, left coast, city, suburb, and farm

from quiet talkers and terse independence

 

from something will come and

more is not always better.

 

- Drew Myron

 

 

Your turn. Where are you from? Please share your poem in the comments section. 

 

In Unexpected Places

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I'm finding inspiration in unexpected places.

Starting with the headline above. I read it as: May is Wildflower Awareness Month. 

Well, yes, of course. After a wet winter, it's been a season of lupine, foxglove, and sweetpea, and with each spotting my heart lifts. But no . . it's wildfires, not widlflowers, that need our attention.

Is this metaphor? These days it seem we're racing to put out fire after fire (immigration, health care, walls, and wars). There's so much to resist my naps have grown in duration, so exhausted from the worry and weight of thinking.  

And so I unexpectedly found solace — and mirth — in the sports pages. No, really.

Do you read Jason Gay? I don't even like sports (at all, none of them) but I eagerly read Jason Gay's column in the Wall Street Journal.*  He's chatty and smart with loads of pop culture references. For example, in This Sports Column is Too Long, he writes:

Let’s be honest: You’re never going to make it to the end of this stupid column. You’re too rushed, too busy, too compressed for time. You have a million things to do, and a million more things competing for your attention. Who has time to read 800 or so words in a newspaper? Or eight words, for that matter? I’ve lost you already. I’m certain of it. At least my mom is still reading. Thanks, Mom!

Just when I think I can't get further afield, I stumble upon car reviews. Yes, you read that right. I couldn't care less about cars. When I drive, I have only three questions: Does it start? Does it run? Do I have to pump my own gas?  But when I read Dan Neil, who writes about cars with such a sharp fun tongue, I can't wait to turn the ignition. For example:

I worried that calling the Toyota Land Cruiser a “behemoth” might sound catty, so I looked it up. The word comes to us from the Hebrew for “hippopotamus,” and—in the actual presence of Toyota’s cultic, revered luxury SUV—I have to say, that’s pretty spot on. Both appear equally aerodynamic, for example. The proportions are similar, too, with massive bodies poised over itty-bitty feet. If anything, it’s the hippos that should take umbrage.

 

You may be asking, what do Jason, Dan and wildfires have to do with writing?

Everything!

To be a writer you must first read. Far and wide. You must stretch yourself beyond the injustice of sports glory, beyond the dullness of automotive details. You must wander into fields unknown. And on your sidetrip, if you're lucky, you may find the real prize: wildflowers.

 

* Yes, I read The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian and The Washington Post and Reuters (though the website is akin to a utilitarian version of Google: all data, no decor). Because I'm a skimmer and frequently forget details, this much reading doesn't make me smart, just tired. 

 

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Whisper & Swell

 

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How the world opens its arms  
 

The day rests with a swell of lilac.

And the blue, see how it swoons

across the wide open sky, and how

now the day has made room for

beauty, waiting just long enough

to hear us whisper amen. 

— Drew Myron

 

 

Because attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy, 

 I make room for Thankful Thursday.
 

What are you thankful for today?