Shooting Stars

Shooting star. Fallen angels. I like the idea. I grew up in a city, a loud city, and like all cities, they could always use a little more love. A lot more angels.

I've seen one shooting star. One. Not in a city where you can't see the stars for the lights, but in little East Sooke. I witnessed an angel falling from heaven! I know exactly where that angel fell. When the star hit the earth, it shattered into many pieces and the pieces landed in the hearts of many beautiful people.

I have never met an angel before. I would have said that a year ago. I would have said I didn't believe in the basic goodness of people. Everyone lied, cheated and stole anything you let near them. At least I thought they did.

And then...and then I got sick. And suddenly found myself in the playground of heavens' fallen children. I am speaking of course of Nancy and Phil Smith. My aunt and uncle.  

My disbelief in angels ironically bit me back. I was a blood relative to the purest angels I've ever met. George Elliot wrote, "the golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand;the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone."

Nancy flew out to help out her twin (my mom) and me with every day things. She acted like it was the only course of action. She became mom 2. I can't put into words how much she saved my mind. That sounds weird, but sunny angels can be like that. When they laugh, it's infectious. Their concern feels genuine. Selfless. I was proved wrong as soon as Nancy entered our home.

It wasn't just coming here that shocked me. I was in for an even greater shock when she followed us to Seattle for the first, rough leg of the trip. She was there, with smiles, laughter, soup and crackers for me and for the soul. She played canasta with me and other games! It made my gradually slimming horizons open up a little more, letting me plan games. Nancy's uplifting stories brought hope. I was more thankful than ever before. 

The Seattle 'jaunt' was only a first of lengthy trips. Being unable to fly due to my illness, angels, displaying wondrous driving skills, sped us to California. 

  I had Phil, angel of love, laughter, smiles, good hugs, wisdom, honesty. 

  I had Nancy, angel of love, laughter, smiles, canasta, warmth, stories and wonder. 

  I had Dad, angel of love, bear hugs, 6:30 am music acceptance, cooking, surprises and laughter.   And I had Mom, angel of love, affection, emotions, midnight snacks, laughter, goodness and desserts. 

They all are angels of what I have become. 

They stuck with me. Incredibly. Even with pain when I lashed out with my tongue and weak arms. They stuck with me. Shockingly. Even when all I ate was Phad Thai and curry which I'm sure they will never touch again.  They stuck with me. Wonderfully. Even when I bugged the hell out of them or got angry or gave up or freaked out or lost myself. 

Because that's what angels do. They stick with you. They help you work it out. "Angels have no philosophy but love." (Adeline Cullen Ray)

Angels drive you from the Bay Area, California to little New Haven, Connecticut in order for you to get the help you need, even when you don't want it. They stay at strange and 'funky' hotels to keep you going, let you order pay-per-view new movie releases when you can't go to the theater, let you be picky about food, let you freak out and cry when you want to and yet they always love you in the end. They hug you. they pick you back up. Again and again and yet again when you think that they're arms are tired from all the lifting they do of you. 

Angels stick with you for months, far beyond their heavenly call of duty. Nancy has been here for how many months and still is funny and has a contagious laugh and lets me joke with her and play games and feeds me breakfast in bed when I need the pep and still loves me. They still love me. 

Angels stick to you. Angels believe in you. My parents do. Not in so many words but I feel it. They brought me here. I fought, kicking and screaming. I dug my claws in, but they wrenched me here. Thank goodness. Glad they didn't listen to the silly rumblings of an angry teen. They do more than I ever thought possible. I owe them all the gratitude and love my heart can hold. They've given me all the hope I can hold and still give me more. You can't do more than what you do. Know that that is the truth. 

I need their love to hold me up. Angels are so strong in their hearts. Steady and emotional.  

In a city full of unsung angels, we need only look close by to see them. They wait for the chance to act. They have integrity and love like nothing I've seen. For angel-wanna-bees, you need only reach out a hand to find yourself one. 

Thank you angels. What more can I say? "Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly." 

Stick around, please. I could use some more flight lessons...

Poolside Lessons

Isn't it just another day in paradise? I could hardly agree. Paradise is soo lost right now. Milton and I know only too well. 

Welcome to my today, tomorrow, now and yesterday.

Wake, eat, sleep, repeat. The rest of the details are a little shaky to say the least. Its rather odd living for the past 5 minutes. For me I'm still in June, practically sitting outside myself. Actually, yesterday (to me), I was in ER with a high fever, not knowing what I was sick with. I would expect to find the fresh IV and needle scars in my arm, but this is almost October not June, the warm summer has been traded for cool breezes, deepening red leaves, and the occasional temptation of warmth and humidity in the air. 

Not going to lie, but today is not exactly my best of days. It feels like a truck with endless tires ran me down with a vengeance. I feel like at least my ribs are cracked, or broken, but they're fine. My joints are SO swollen when I close my eyes, but on closer inspection they look normal. I know something is eating through me steadily, but have just not breached the surface. I feel almost positive that there will be nothing left in me for scans and tests 'cept a heart that is still trudging on. Everyone keeps urging it on with love and hope. I follow suit and eat hope for breakfast. And snacks. Frequent snacks. 

I'm not meaning to sound cold or whiny. I'm so fed up. And so let down. I am loosing more faith in the health institution day by day. A little more knowledge, a little less pride and some insane luck and I could be back home, visiting my friends when I wanted a cheer-up. Who knows if I would have been on my way to recovery a full 6 months or so ago had I been diagnosed. Who really knows? I'm not sure of anything. 

I would settle for a mundane existence right now. I want to go to the mall and drink bubble tea and laugh. I want the freedom to do what I will. I would settle for walking. I love these legs and they ain't working so hard no more. And I'm pissed. And so ready for a stroll through the park one day. 

Martin Luther King wrote in 1963 that "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." Where do I stand? I'm not exactly living it up, but standing in the murky waters of Lyme where it is both a challenge to live with and a controversy to be able to be treated to live without it. I live in a tidal pool of confusion, pulled across continents and into different medical offices and constantly swimming, not sinking. Good thing too, cause I'm not as good as I might be on surviving underwater. 

I swim. I swum. I'm swimming. I will be swimming. For a long time.

PS: Thank you to all those who throw me a lifesaver when I go overboard and fish me back out from the deep constantly. You pick me up selflessly and I don't deserve that kind of love. But know I love you more in return. Keep fishing. When I get better, I will swim with you. 

"What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well."

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery  ~

Hope for the Fall

I know that its a little early to make a list of the things that we are thankful for, but looking at all the colored leaves all over the place reminds me of Thanksgiving-being close to Plymouth Rock helps a bit to get me in the mood, I suppose. But since I have learned to appreciate each day as it comes, each moment as I live it and each memory that passes my mind by, I realize that I have so much good. Almost enough to keep the bad away. Just almost, but it's always there to keep me oh so 'grounded', painfully so.

Each day I greet with a sigh of annoyance and frustration like everyone else. I don't have to get up to an alarm so that means that when I wake, the only person I generally have to blame is myself and somehow hitting a barren dressing table, searching for the snooze button doesn't help me fall deeper asleep for that stolen 20 minutes. Outside it's beautiful but to me it doesn't come through my window pane, it falls just short of where it should, like heavy expectations. Perhaps it appears that this would fit under my list of growing ironic curses, but I have come to believe (after it has been droned into my head thousands of times) that waking up in the morning, though it is a continuation of my suffering, it will lead to a better kind of end. The end of this disease. It will also lead to the stage of my life which I will call the "activist" stage. To make change I gotta get out of this hole first. 

I am thankful for narcotics, and mothers and aunts to comfort you, I'm thankful for weather which always mixes up my day nicely. I am eternally grateful for ladders which continue to be lowered into the deeper and deeper holes that Lyme is burying me in. I know that later, as the pain becomes and dull ache and then a distant memory, I will be thankful for life. For the fact that I can sit by my window and watch the world fly by, that I can feel a wind lift me up and laughter shake my bones again. 

Forgive the poeticism but this is the honest truth. I could never construct a lie about this when the truth is as beautiful as it is. 

Beautiful things. That's another that makes it worth it. I'm looking out of angry eyes and a little color and life always brightens me up. In stores, I reach out for brightly colored things; coats, shirts, hair scrunchii's, pencil crayons, photographs...anything that catches my eye become the apple of it. I'm thankful for the 'God' or sweet technicolor-light-science which made this 'color' exist. I live for it. I breathe it. And makeup, in lurid colors. It makes me feel like I'm with my friend in a drugstore, browsing the isles, looking for new stuff or cool stuff on shopping trips to the downtown Victoria. 

And my goodness, thank goodness for books! Its always nice to loose myself in someone else's mind and life for awhile and escape mine. And my am I glad to have some fun games around and wonderfully silly people to play them with.

But above all, I cling to one ideal, like so many others.

Hope.

Not just my hope, which I am a little low on at the moment, but the loving, sweet warm glow of the hope of loved ones. It is the rock I cling to as I'm hanging off the cliff. It sounds cheesy but it is you guys, my friends and family who I laugh with (or at-its kind of a sketchy topic) and cry with and dance with and sing with and share most of my 'finest' moments with and live with and for. You have no idea how much I love and respect you. You define me. And keep me breathing. I am indebted to you. I never realized how much I value and rely on your love until now. I'm glad and most thankful for you guys. Thank you. What more can I say that hasn't been said a hundred times. 

I think of you guys all the time. I see you everywhere. In everything. Its strange. You are timeless and have spread your love out so far, it reaches me here. 

I am thankful.

So thankful.

It makes me want to wear fall colors and wax press big leaves and walk outside and feel the breeze in my hair. 

But I have proved that thankfulness isn't just a onetime shot.

We shouldn't take care of the earth just on Earth Day, love solely on Valentines day, celebrate life just on a birthday and death on the Day of the Dead, make jokes only on April Fools and eat mini chocolates and be free on Halloween. 

Everyday is a holiday. An adventure, both good and bad. And to me that is worth living for. Worth waking up and drifting off to sleep knowing that I have hope, and more things to be thankful for tomorrow.

Thank you. 

I am so thankful.

Travels To Neighbors

I have arrived! Dun dun dun duh! A momentous moment I truly believed would not come. I am speaking of my arrival, figuratively in half a piece, in New Haven, Connecticut, pretty much as far away from nearly the very west-est of my hometown. But I didn't simply fly from point A to point B, that's too easy for the clever Lyme bugs. They make plane travel out of the question and besides, when the flight crew takes one look at me, they would have turned me away. The biggest problem with the sky is that the virus thrives on tuff conditions, like extreme heat, cold and altitude. The result of a simple and short plane trip would have made me much sicker and weak and therefore unable to get treatment. So we did it old school. My incredibly wonderful aunt & uncle drove me across the continent. No school like the old school, is there?

Obviously living on an island and my failure at learning Jesus' 'ol trick, forced us to take a speedy boat trip to Seattle. We had an appointment with a doctor who I was told was the one. He was closest, and new all about Lyme disease. We rented a small condo near Upper Queen's District, waiting somewhat NOT patiently for the appointment day. When it arrived and the day was done, I was happily sitting in the front seat of our rental, clutching a bulging paper bag of narcotics. My mom and aunt were also focusing on referral slips to others who could offer help. I wasn't worried about the future, or the past or the moment because for each five minutes that past, it seemed to me like they had never happened. My short term memory loss to me is definitely my greatest...loss. I usually have a fantastic memory and was and still am frustrated at my minds inability to focus & remember. So time just began to slip by. I forgot every day, so it seemed like no time at all had past. But we stayed some weeks in Seattle, of which I have no recollection. Perhaps that's a good thing. Perhaps. My body and illness was protecting my mind? I don't see it that way. Not at all.

I saw two more doctors in the Seattle area. The fiance of my original "Lyme Literate Doctor" in Seattle gave me 'pushes' which is an injection of nutrients which I really needed. It wasn't fun, but I needed it, and I'm learning that most of life these days is similar. One doctor who has been truly exceptional and has gone far above her "job" is Dr. Marra. She is a force to be reckoned with and is clearly a passionate woman with a mission and the drive to get things done. Within minutes of being in her office, she was making calls to doctors in San Francisco, trying to get me an appointment with another. And while we drove to California, my home, again seeking medical treatment, she called regularly to check up on me, providing invaluable advice to us. I met with the doctor briefly and was prescribed treatment, but instead of getting worse, then getting better (like a phoenix), i got worse, and worse, and never got a bit better. The doctor was so busy and seemed to have spread himself too thin. Not to say he wasn't a very good doctor. Even though I went backwards instead of forwards in California, I was happy to be home and spend some time with friends. But then we picked it up and drove across the USA to arrive in New Haven, Connecticut for my last stop.

The last stop. Wow. Never thought I would find the official "last stop" after the first few turned out to be rest stops versus final stops. But I'm here and that's what they say matters. I wish I could remember the journey because to me, even though I'm doing nothing, time is slipping away too fast. If I learn nothing else, it is that we must all live for each day, because tomorrow is not promised.