i carry your heart with me

I am sure the formatting is off on this (which is unfortunate, since that is one of the cool things about ee cummings' poems), but it's just too fabulous not to share. So here it is ...

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i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling) i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

Hip hip hooray ...

... the biopsy, she is benign!

Three months after I got on that tilt-a-whirl, I am finally -- and gloriously -- off it.

That was no "E Ticket". More like a bad funhouse at a ride-all-you-can-handle amusement park.

A most UN-fun funhouse!

**phew**

I'm re-posting here an entry from another blog I have kept for a while. Looking back at it, it is a bracing reminder that I have moved through so much Fear and survived it, finding gifts of possibility, of choice, of hope there on the other side. As much as I fear (or even wish fervently for, on occasion) "the End", the scarier thought is actually living that End before it comes.

It'll come eventually ... but what do I do between now and then? I have to believe that that's what counts. That that's what I have to work with, and the attendant rights, responsibilities and "blank canvas" it implies.

Having hope in hand in again -- that changes everything. I want more of it. More hope.

"Lump. Lesion. Mass. Mystery.

Whatever you call it ... by whatever name ... it strikes fear in the heart. Nobody uses it the first time around. Instead, there is "the need for additional imaging", "further diagnostic tests", and further in, you start to hear those words from the people you never want to hear them from. Eighty percent of these interlopers are benign.

But 20% aren't.

So they are going after me with needles today. Let joy be unconfined! I'd rather be handling snakes than doing this. And then -- the waiting. The absurd prospect of waiting 'til next Tuesday afternoon to meet with the doctor to hear whether or not all these weeks of utter fear, of something bordering on existential dread, was even warranted.

If it wasn't? Hooray. Let's go out and poultice the worry wounds. Maybe grab a sundae and hit a matinee.

If it was?

If it is?

Malignant, I mean. The "C" word. Maybe still ice cream, and movies. But I've known the "shock" state before, and anything I do during that time comes, inevitably, to be attached to that roiling, boiling turmoil beneath the surface of the temporary emotional permafrost. My sense of humor (normally one of my tools to handle Life As We Know It) disappears. The colors melt away from my eyes. The ground beneath me undulates. I feel consumed.

Thought: If I have the big "C", I am going to cast off some of the old rules. I am going to tell people what I really think. Even if the syrupy sentiments embarass them, or the candor discomforts them. I have held back on a lot, for a long time. Learned not to rock boats, big or little. And if I don't have it?

No "C"? I'll still revisit those rules. Question who made them, and why I ought to follow them at all. Instead of excising tumors, I may decide to eliminate that creeping necrosis of the unattended soul. Decide that enough is enough of giving all the best parts of myself away, and taking other peoples' garbage out. They can take their own garbage out. and I'll take care of mine. One way or another. "C" or no C.

So -- here's to hope, no matter what the outcome is. Emily Dickinson's "thing with feathers that perches in the soul". Hope is good. I will take a double scoop of hope ... With jimmies."

L.A.E.

4 a.m.: The poetry of pain

Dreaming in Place


Old spirits come calling
Regret fuels despair
Under cover of darkness
I meet fear with fear

The days that went wrong
The lovers who strayed
The life half unlived
The dreams all betrayed

Sun rises from shadow
My eyes slowly trace
The life that I hoped for
But I'm dreaming in place

In a prison of quiet
Time roars like a tide
I scramble for refuge
With nowhere to hide

If angels surround me
They stand strangely still
Unsure of their footing
Too long on this hill

Sun rises from shadow
My eyes slowly trace
The life that I hoped for
But I'm dreaming in place

I reach in the dark
For my creaturely friend
Sweet old companion
In a night without end

No faith for the faithless
No birds in the trees
No songs in the silence
Nobody who sees

Sun rises from shadow
My eyes slowly trace
The life that I hoped for
Still dreaming in place


L.A.E.

Up from the rabbit hole!

NASA, the needle has landed. Hello, Mr. Biopsy! ...

... goodbye bling-less boob (they leave a teeny titanium clip in there in case they ever need to go back in -- a kind of "X" marks the spot.)

OK ... on to the next thing. Which is sleeping (stress, how exhausting it is!!), a Red Sox game in Anaheim (2 down so far, with both Manny & Ortiz out tonight?! Not looking especially good). The series is blown, but we'd do well to win a game with the Yankees climbing up our tailpipe.

Ahem.

Before, during, in the middle of all that ... looking back over the nearly 1,000 photos in my Tribe album. And a realization: that for a long time I could not talk sensibly, or coherently, in sentences. Oh sure, I put words together, but I could not unseal my soul and unburden myself of the groaning dreams, straining forward for some bright and shining future. For lovelinesses which, in those long, dark days, escaped me.

Like a lepidopterist, I fixed image after image under virtual glass. Pixels were my pronouns, my prepositions, my piecing together of something resembling a beautiful and lost world. Or at world lost to me, at any rate.

Depression is a kaleidoscopic thing, oftimes dark and scary. The baubles bounce around in the churning brew and up from the depths come these talismans, collected like charms on a bracelet of tears, hopes, fears.

Life goes on.

I wait for the results of the biopsy, and yet ... I cannot wait to live again. I can't afford to wait.

I don't want to wait.

L.A.E.

Books I've read lately.

Songbook, Nick Hornby: http://tinyurl.com/23pm6c

By turns acerbic, witty, insightful and authentic, one man's look at life. HIs points of reference are selected favorite songs, but these serve only as a platform on which Hornby does his thing. A two-day, in-the-bathtub read. Loved it!

The Dogs Who Came To Stay, George Pitcher: http://tinyurl.com/2a4ctd

Two genteel old bachelor professors, one lop eared interloper of dubious lineage and the joy she brought to their lives. Who says men don't have ferocious parenting instincts? This homeless dog and her irresistible pups break down the door of ordinary, settled lives and stir all manner of tender heartedness. A glorious read, and a heartbreaking one too (because dogs tragically go before us, and always too soon).

Crowded House Invades Massachusetts!

Photos and videos:

http://www.popgraphics.net/placedate/?p=126

web.mac.com/lfdavey/iWeb...08.05.07.html

I saw them at the larger venue (BofA Pavillion in Boston) and even after all this time and the several shows I've seen them do before they disbanded a decade ago, I can say this: they are EASILY better than ever. The only thing really missing would be Paul Hester's presence. But he was "in the room" that night.

Goose-bumping goodness.

Neil Finn's voice is the treasure of our time and place ... why do more people not KNOW this?! Like the question of how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, it's an eternal mystery to me. I am perplexed but pleased as punch at having seen my boys again ... manna has fallen from heaven and right into my lap.

Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

I have to admit to feeling the love all over, up and down and inside and out and every which way but loose (though maybe loose too. Yeah, maybe even that!) :)

L.A.E.

It ain't about the small stuff ...

... which I sweat (way too easily), or the everyday stuff (most of which is small stuff anyway because yes -- if you're nosy enough to want to know, I am an inveterate worry wart) ...

Except when it is. As in WHAT IS THAT MASS DOING IN MY BODY and WHY HAVEN'T THEY BIOPSIED IT YET, for the love of Pete and his dog's balls?

The medical system, as great as it is (a highly debatable topic), has been throwing me around like a hapless cell in a petri dish for months, now. Names changed to protect the offending parties:

Dr. A, June 2007: "Oh no, that thing doesn't need biopsying. Come back in six months and we'll image it again." (Phew).

Dr. M. ("primary care physician"), June 2007: "Well, I think you need a second opinon. You need to see Dr. Monkeyshines in Boston. Sure, it's a slog, but she actually calls us back to discuss outcomes."

Dutifully, I board the train, sludge my way out to the South End of Boston to this place, enduring the smell and torpor of the T (subway system) on a not-especially-sweet smelling day in the middle of June. Why? Well, I'm fairly sure I want to live -- or I at least don't want to be fool enough to avoid whatever could save me from an early and agonizing death -- so I slog it out. Keep my eyes closed, my mouth shut, my arms away from the sliding doors.

Dr. Monkeyshines's Verdict: "Looking at these films, I see no reason why this should not have been biopsied. We want to clobber them when they make these decisions".

Make that two of us, lady. And oh, by the way, I retract my original "phew" and trade it for a double damn.

July 2007: back to the scene of the original crime for the biposy that should have happened. I'm lying on the table, having got about 89 minutes of fitful sleep the night before, clutching my imaginary sock monkey for comfort, ready for the needle ... and nothing. Dr. T. (charming, affable, and -- hey! -- able to convey the impression that he might actually know what he's talking about) says "I can't visualize this lesion well enough on ultrasound to make sure I sample the right area of tissue. You need a different kind of biopsy."

Uh, excuse me, but have the Keystone Cops taken charge here?

When do these people stop the ride and let me get off? And why would they think a $10 gas card (for "my inconvenience") would make up for their haplessness?

August 1st: I pour my wrath out to the referral coordinator. She's young, a rosy cheeked mother of two, and takes pity on my neurotic, early-middle-aged self. (Do these little people know how much they mean in the lives of scared patients? I hope they do. She's the one I am most grateful to so far. It's funny how feeling cared for can ease some mental anguish! I salute you, Ruthy).

August 7th: Here I sit, on the eve of the THIRD VISIT for a biopsy. Last week I sent my strongly worded (not quite bitchy, but close) letter to the hospital outlining my grievances regarding continuity of care, and in today's mail comes the response that my "concerns will be forwarded to the Office of Patient Advocacy" at the hospital.

Not exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least they know I'm not a dumb ass who can be sent to the waiting room and just be happy with whatever. ("Whatever" as in "WHATEVER", that adolescent word-du-jour, covering all manner of complaint masquerading as ambivalence/indifference -- your choice).

Advocating for yourself as a patient, especially when you are on Medicaid (and only Medicaid) is the pits. It's difficult, and you are discouraged. You are very nearly dismissed. But they haven't seen the last of me. Because if I have to jab that needle in myself, that biopsy is happening!

Even though I hate needles ... it's happening!

Mitt Romney: Ass Hat or merely Republican?

Mittens Romney has a history of cruelty to animals, folks:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1638065,00.html

If this is how he treats a dog, one can only wonder how he views the common man, woman and child. When will be strap US to the roof (a la George W.)?

Take it from Rascal:

http://dogsagainstromney.blogspot.com/2007/07/please-dont-let-mitt-hurt-dogs-any-more.html

Don't.
Vote.
Mitt.


L.A.E.

Charm to "spare" ...

Ed (the late and lamented TV series) is finally coming to DVD.

That's Ed, as in the single most underrated TV show of the past ten years ... about a small town lawyer who owns a bowling alley. But don't call him a bowling alley lawyer.

I want to live in Stuckeyville! I want Ed to crush on me! Hell, I'd start out by polishing his bowling balls.

(Get your mind out of the gutter, and don't make me tell you twice).

L.A.E.

Guys with guitars.

If tonight I got to invite any living person of my choice to dinner, I couldn't really decide between these two ridiculously talented modern pop demi-gods: Glenn Tilbrook, Neil Finn ...

I would serve them up some fine vittles, yes indeed! Those voices send me to places I could never go on a plane, train or automobile.

In my dreams, maybe ... but hey, a gal can dream. It's an awfully arid life without dreams.


L.A.E.

Poetry Medicine: Wendell Berry

"Do Not Be Ashamed"


You will be walking some night in the comfortable dark of your yard and suddenly a great light will shine round about you, and behind you will be a wall you never saw before ...

It will be clear to you suddenly that you were about to escape, and that you are guilty: you misread the complex instructions, you are not a member, you lost your card or never had one. And you will know that they have been there all along, their eyes on your letters and books, their hands in your pockets, their ears wired to your bed. Though you have done nothing shameful, they will want you to be ashamed. They will want you to kneel and weep and say you should have been like them ...

And once you say you are ashamed, reading the page they hold out to you,then such light as you have made in your history will leave you. They will no longer need to pursue you.You will pursue them, begging forgiveness. They will not forgive you. There is no power against them.It is only candor that is aloof from them, only an inward clarity, unashamed, that they cannot reach. Be ready.When their light has picked you outand their questions are asked, say to them: "I am not ashamed." A sure horizon will come around you. The heron will begin his evening flight from the hilltop.

New Crowded House ...

The Guardian has given the new disc, Time On Earth, a fine review:

http://music.guardian.co.uk/pop/reviews/story/0,,2103415,00.html

Oh, and Johnny Marr on guitar in the first single ...

Paging the 80's, in a **good** way (finally).

Hooooooray.


L.A.E.