An Unseen Presence

8/27/07

“Love…is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”
-- Iris Murdoch, 1968

What follows was written on or about August 7. Rather than try to pick up where it leaves off, about, March, 2005, I’m just going to publish it as is.

An unseen presence in this blog, unlike my life, is my wonderful companion, Brigitte. It’s time to talk about her. She is my lover, confidante, musical mate, advisor, editor, photographer, and all else that one who loves bestows on their beloved. Her unswerving devotion to my needs and desires makes it hard for me to describe the special place she occupies in the family of those nearest and dearest to me. Her beauty, intelligence, kindness, and consideration defy description. Much of the science based medical information in this blog is based on B’s (my affectionate name for her) painstaking research and intellectual diligence. If my rhetoric seems particularly eloquent it is in no small part due to her constant advice and assistance. In all things human we attach certain dates to our histories, mutual and otherwise.

Some chronology. We’ve been close since Labor Day of 2001. It was the weekend my towers came down. Given that she and I were married at the time (and not to each other), my attempt at damage control was about as effective as Bush’s war on terror. I had joined “The Magic Poetry Band” the previous spring. The drummer, Jim Carey, and I were playing in another band, FUBAR, and he asked if I might be interested in filling in for the recently departed guitarist in MAPOBA. Having always wanted to be taken seriously as a guitarist, I jumped at the chance. It was cool. I could literally play any thing I wanted so long as it fit the poetry. M.L. Liebler is, and has always been, the band in its various permutations. This guy’s talent lies in his ability to write successful grants. While we didn’t make big money for the actual gigs, we traveled to cool places and played hip venues, like “The Knitting Factory” in Manhattan, Café Picasso in New Orleans and Bumbershoot in Seattle. It was like nothing I had experienced before. We played a school assembly in Hancock, Michigan where the students treated us like Rock Stars. Since both Country Joe MacDonald and Jorma Kaukonen are buddies with M.L. we got to meet and play with them. He also knows Al Kooper and Michael Moore, among other counter culture dignitaries. Poets? He knows them all. But if our political philosophies were in lock step, our moral beliefs were vastly different. Homosexuality is not a sin. Add to this, his alarm and consternation concerning B’s and I/my mutual admiration society, the band, at least that version of it, was doomed to a short shelf life. As the band dissolved our love grew. And as our relationship blossomed, my family, which I love dearly, fell apart.

As I write this, B’s lovely and talented daughter, Amanda, is laughing with her auntie Lori, one of four girls, a quartet of comely downstate girls that have surely set many a cowboy’s heart aflutter. Brigitte’s German and Norwegian blood give her a singular beauty that, in certain moods and settings, is stunning in its effect. I’ve known Amanda since she was 7. We like each other, which is no small accomplishment given the suspicions children often harbor regarding their mother’s affections for others. One of my small pleasures of late has been watching Amanda’s softball career. Amanda loves Big Bay. She’s like some kind of a freshwater dolphin, constantly leaping and finning through the sparkling waves under the summer U.P. sky.

Back to the Brigitte story. About three years ago, B. was discovered to have a growth in her heart. As it turned out, it was a benign mass protruding from the left atrial valve, something called a Fibroelastoma. While not cancerous, this condition does pose the ever-present, and fatal, possibility of breaking loose. Were it anywhere else its removal would be a routine procedure. Given its location, however, major surgery was the only option. Being there. I didn’t ask for it, but this gave me a chance to step up to the plate.

BACK TO THE PRESENT
Day 13, Round 2:
The pattern goes like this: day 1, infusion, steroids, a hopped up feeling, difficulty sleeping; given the toxicity of the drugs, who knows what the initial shock to the system is? ; days 2-5, (the oral part of the R-C.H.O.P regimen, the steroid, prednisone, is taken during this period) hence, energy, appetite, and mood volatility; days 6-9, (crash from the steroids) fatigue, lethargy, depression, emotional swings; Days 9-10, sore gums, throat, and tongue, difficulty swallowing and speaking, tired and pessimistic….;days 11-12, sense of recovery, mouth is healed, energy on the up…

If all goes as last time, I will feel better as this week progresses. I think this is typical, in that once your body has somewhat recovered from the toxic assault, you’re ready for the next blast, which is next Tuesday. If I haven’t said much about the cancer itself, it’s because I haven’t experienced any of the initial symptoms, abdominal pain, that led to my diagnosis. This Friday, as a part of a research study being done by the U-M Cancer Center, I’m undergoing a P.E.T. scan that should provide some indication of how things are going.
Chemo brain? Chemo dreams? Pyrex glass measuring cup. Csuttling…err…scuttling, Kafkaesque, dust mop sized bug on the ceiling. That’s a big bug. The measuring cup appeared out of context, like a Magritte or Dali, surrealistically. Talk about 60s shit run amok! What am I on? GRE preparation, that’s something I was worried about the other night. I can’t remember if I was asleep or awake. The bug was a furtive thing, a paranoid glance. It was black. Once, after being overcome by a kinder poison, alcohol, I shot bolt upright from a blackout sleep to the sight of a menacing, onyx temple dog, snarling and gnashing. The thing had to be 8 feet tall. But why the measuring cup? Dreams are, by convention, non-linear, anachronistic, jumbled and chaotic. But convention is the wrong word, you say. Convention implies a set of rules, as in the conventions of a genre: the western has cowboys, the comedy has gags, the mystery has clues. But if a dream can be realistic in chronology and depiction, as well as surreal, then anything the human mind can conjure is a convention of the dream. Or, put another way, the dream narrative knows no conventions. So, why the measuring cup?