On ghosts, impermanence and osteoporosis

In 1990 I moved with my three-month-old daughter to Tallahassee, Florida, where I had gone to graduate school for a master’s degree in creative writing in the mid-80s. I had re-enlisted in grad school to get a Ph.D. because I figured if I was going to be a single mom, being a college professor was a wiser choice than working 12-hour days as a freelance journalist. My daughter’s father was having a temper tantrum because I’d gone and gotten myself pregnant against his express wishes. How I did that without his participation I’m still unclear about. But two years later Hank arrived in Tallahassee, too, with toys for his little princess and a check for me. I took him back.

My mom lived in Edenton, NC, by this time and we’d make occasional forays up there to visit. The drive from Tallahassee to Edenton took an eternity -- especially the one time we got off I-95 and decided to take the scenic route along Highway 17. Somewhere in an alternate universe a man and a woman are still on that highway with a little girl in the back seat, asking, “How much longer?” The parents automatically answer, “About an hour.” Our destination was always about an hour away.

My mother also came to visit us in Tallahassee at least once that I can remember. I know this because I have a picture.

My mother became old in fits and starts during the 1990s. Every time I saw her, I noticed some surprising new mile marker in the aging process.

On this particular visit I discovered she could no longer keep up with me when we walked anywhere. I found I needed to walk very, very slowly. Her heart, she explained . . .she had congestive heart failure. WTF? She never had anything wrong with her heart before. The past 20 or so years she’d been an inveterate walker. Walking was what we did together: long, brisk walks. That was her exercise, as well as a wonderful way for us to spend time together, to talk and laugh. And now all of a sudden (or so it seemed to me) we were cr-aw-ling. We’d become characters in a movie, moving in slow motion, each step exaggerated and excruciating as the world seemed to stop spinning in space. Of course, I hadn’t planned for this when I got her and Emmy in the car to go to the opera at the university. I carved out just enough time for us to speed over to campus, find a parking space and sprint to the opera hall. That was my normal M.O. I didn’t know there was a new normal in town.

Somehow we got to the opera before the curtain rose though I’m sure I had a mental breakdown as we moved with glacier-like speed along the sidewalk.

I kept thinking there was some way to “fix” my mother. At the time I had come across some “Tibetan rites.” The man who had gone to Tibet to discover them claimed they’d have old bodies dancing like teenagers. Oh, I was always onto something.

“Here, Mom, just do this,” I said. With my lithe 37-year-old body I demonstrated the rites in the living room of our little ranch house. Spinning was the first one. I got my mom to slowly spin three times. (You’re supposed to build up to 21.) She couldn’t do it. She was out of breath and a bright red blood spot suddenly bloomed in my mother’s left eye.

Shit, I thought, I’ve killed my mother. She’s had an embollism or something. She somehow survived my improvements efforts. Of course, she was a big disappointment to me, having gone and grown old like that. Where was my playful friend?

In the picture I have of her from that visit she is standing by the fountain in front of the auditorium at Florida State, wearing a dark velvet dress and holding the hand of four-year-old Emmy, who has one leg out in an arabesque and is balancing on the wall of the fountain. My mother is heavier in this picture than she had ever been before -- not fat, by any means, but solid, seemingly immoveable.

This is the last picture I have of my mother without a walker.

The Buddhists teach impermanence. An idea that still confounds me. In my mind my mother is permanently laughing and vigorous -- physically strong and intellectually at the top of the mountain. But right now, as I sit on my front porch on a chilly autumn morning, yellow poplar leaves carpeting the ground, I am aware of my own mortality slowly ticking away inside my body. My doctor has informed me that my bones have already begun the process of deconstructing themselves. One day my daughter will look at me in shock and dismay as I can no longer keep up with her. And I -- this I of this moment -- will just be a ghost in her mind.

The Reluctant Self-Promoter

Heretofore, I have never had the opportunity to use the word “heretofore.” But I do now. Heretofore, I have not blogged about anything in particular. Oh, I always planned to do a “writing” blog but never got around to it. Instead I would blog about missing my kid or taking care of my mother or taking walks or occasionally about politics. My blogging was sporadic and random.

Now, however, I am blogging for a purpose: to track my journey as I attempt to promote my new novel, Picara (note inclusion of title for promotion purposes, which I had to go back and add). I am doing this because that may be the only way I can stand it. If I write about the rejection and the humiliation and all the other things I dislike about self-promotion, at least it will serve a purpose. Something enjoyable (writing) will take place as a result. Also, I think it will keep me on track. I will continue to put myself out there like a youtube wannabe movie star because that is what I am supposed to do if I want to keep doing this thing that I love. Keeping a blog will nudge me (I hope) in the right direction. And maybe some other reluctant self-promoter will realize he or she is not alone.

To clarify, I don’t actually mind giving readings and book signings. I like it. I like meeting people who have read my work or who are planning to read it or who just like the cover of a book I wrote. And I love doing workshops for people who write or who want to write or who think they might want to write. That stuff is fun.

What is not so fun for me is getting out and pushing myself. I’m not sure why, but that part is painful. Just the other day I was reading a chapter in a book on women’s health as research for a freelance gig. And I came across the definition of “borderline personality.” This was interesting to me because about 20 years ago I was married for all of about three weeks. My then husband and I saw a therapist once who later told my husband that I might be a “borderline personality.” I had no idea what that meant, but I damn sure didn’t appreciate it. I mean the guy had talked to me once. And I was not the one screaming and kicking doors in. (BTW, former husband and I are now friends again; we have forgiven each other.)

So now, 20-something years later I read the description of a borderline personality: “poor self-image; unstable relationships; mood swings; impulsive behavior; extreme fear of being abandoned; self-destructive behaviors. . . .” Damn, that was me at one point in my life. For the most part, I’ve managed to quell the craziness. No one who knows me now would call me impulsive or self-destructive. My moods aren’t any worse than any other menopausal maniac. I am separated from my current husband, but we were in a stable relationship for the past 18 years. As for abandonment, well, I’ve experienced it bigtime and handled it okay. So . . .all that leaves is poor self-image.

I’ve been working on that. For a long time. So part of my mission here is to be honest while at the same time not berating myself. My Science of Mind friends and mentors say to be careful of your words, be careful what you own. I think it’s okay to own up to the fact that I’m a reluctant self-promoter, but that I’m willing to do it. So tomorrow I’ll call up the local B&N once more and mention that the girl on the cover of my book goes to a high school near their store and that we might get a few of her friends to come for a book signing. And I will call up the funky little import store on Central Avenue again to see if they’ll be willing to be the venue for my party. And I’ll call the bookstore in Durham and try to convince them to have me do a book signing there in conjunction with a local radio interview. I mean, I’m not Pat Conroy. I’m Pat MacEnulty, and they haven’t heard of me in spite of my five books. So they don’t jump up and down like they’ve just won the lottery when I call ‘em up. This is going to take some effort.

In the meantime, I am grateful for Lorri, who is redesigning my website and serving as a stand-in publicist. And for Lynda, who invited me to San Miguel de Allende, and Heather at the Portland Library for saying, “Come on up!” Their support balances out the not-so-great things about this venture. It’s a beginning.

A Day at the Medicaid Office

On Monday I had to leave work early to see about getting my mother re-certified for Medicaid. She’s in a rehab center while her broken ankle heals. Medicare covers 20 days in rehab but she’s in some insurance HMO plan that sucks out the Medicare money and doles it out the way they want to. For some things it’s better than Medicare. But for others it’s not. This, for instance. Instead of covering 20 days in rehab, it covers ten. She’s on day seven. After that I have to start shelling out one hundred bucks a day to keep my mother there. That’s why I’m driving to the Medicaid office instead of sitting in yet another meeting at my school.

During my lunch break I had called the SSI office. A message told me I was “caller number twenty in queue.” I finally got to a human, but he managed to cut me off. So I dialed again and in only fifteen minutes I had another human.

“Please don’t cut me off,” I said to him. “It takes way too long to get to a human.” He promised he wouldn’t.

I told him my story: my mom had been on Medicaid 18 months ago, the last time she was in the rehab center. I explained that when she got better we put her in a private pay facility because there were no long-term Medicaid beds available. But now she was back in rehab and we needed the Medicaid again.

He transferred me to someone else and I got a voicemail. She didn’t call me back. So a few hours later I leave work and call her again. Lo and behold, she answers. In my utter naivete I was sure that this was something that could be done by phone or online. Wrong. I am required to go to the office and fill out an application in person.

As I drive to the office, I wonder how this would get done if I were not here to do it – or if I had the kind of job where I couldn’t leave to go take care of my mother’s medical problems. Or what if I was sick myself, or disabled? This is how people’s live spiral out of control, how they go bankrupt, how they die forgotten and alone.

The Social Security Administration building in Charlotte is an imposing brick building not far from uptown. As you approach the entrance, you join the huddled masses yearning for healthcare. Most of the people milling about are minorities. According to a Healthcare Forum I went to recently, 35 percent of African Americans are without health insurance. I don't know what the figures are for Hispanics. For whites, it's 6 percent. But I've been part of that 6 percent. I know what it feels like to simply decide you can't get sick. Many of the people here are women. They have children or they are pregnant or both. I wonder why so many Americans are poor. Why aren’t there enough jobs for us? What happened to the idea of affordable childcare?

I go inside and a woman at the information desk gives me some form to fill out. No pen, but I’ve got my own. I find a little desk and fill out the form, then I go stand in a line. When I get to the front of the line I have to sign a piece of paper. Then go sit in another area and wait. Hmm, I think. Okay, maybe this is what the crazy “keep your government hands off my healthcare” screamers are picturing. I know it doesn’t have to be this way. Government manages to do a lot of things pretty damn well. Education, road building, libraries, policing, fire fighting. But maybe this sucks because it’s for poor people. Maybe if it was for everybody they’d get more efficient. Then again, maybe it would be like the DMV. Whatever. No one should die or go broke so that Insurance CEOs can wipe their butts with hundred dollar bills.

This place has kind of a festive air about it. I watch a preteen girl herding her younger siblings; a dad and his severely disabled son; a lean, athletic young black man in a wheelchair with his hands in bandages. Everyone has a story. After an hour of sitting I’m still wondering what about this whole experience couldn’t be done online or by phone. A couple minutes before five, just before the place closes, a case worker leads me back into the warren of cubicles for an interview. The cubicles are small; the walls brown. I sit down in a plastic chair and stare at a line of screws sticking out of the wall.

The case worker, a strapping bald man, seems like a really nice guy but I’m remembering a guy I knew who worked for social security in another town and who had a predilection for smoking pot and exposing himself to teenage girls. Whatever this particular guy does in his spare time, he seems perfectly willing to approve my mother’s application.

There’s just one problem. I’d forgotten that when you get on Medicaid, they take your social security check and leave you thirty bucks a month for spending money.

“But . . .but . . .how will we pay for her room at the assisted living place?” I ask. “Her social security check pays for a good chunk of the rent. Then my brothers and I make up the difference.”

“My hands are tied,” he says with a shrug.

Tears start marching down my tear ducts for a general meeting just under my eyelids. Words of doom and desperation swirl around my brain pan.

“But . . . but . . .” I begin again. “She’s only supposed to need rehab for a couple of weeks and if she loses her place, then where will she go?”

“I understand,” he says. “Some people have mortgages and they have to choose between their homes and their healthcare.”

This makes me feel so much better.

“It’s not going to work,” I tell him, trying to keep the whine out of my voice. We continue with the application.

Like a rat backed into a corner, my brain begins scurrying around the problem as I wait for him to print out the forms. What can I do? Will I need to yank her out of rehab? Surely the assisted living place won’t take her back in this shape. She can’t put any weight on her right foot. She needs so much help getting off and on the toilet, getting in and out of the bed. Will I need to go over to her place and move all her stuff out? Money for movers, money for storage. What will I do about that albatross of a bed she has? Is it time for her to move in with me? Will my new roommate be willing to help me out with her? Is she moves in with me, will I ever get any work done again? Will I ever be able to travel? What about sleeping? She needs a lot of care. A lot. And how can I get her in and out of my house without a ramp? What about bathing her with no shower downstairs?

Finally, I stop. I realize I can’t make any decisions without more information. Tomorrow, Scarlett. We’ll figure this out tomorrow.

Cold, cold hand

My mother is in the hospital. Again. Every year it’s something different. This time it’s a broken ankle and a blood clot. I’ve learned a few lessons from years past.
“No morphine,” I tell the emergency room doctor who calls me as I’m driving late at night from Tallahassee, where I’ve been taking a mini-vacation, to Charlotte where I live.
The next day when I get to the hospital I tell them again: “No morphine. I know she says she’s in pain. She’s always in pain. But no morphine.”
The doctor agrees with me, but that night someone gives her morphine anyway. The next day the doctor writes that she’s allergic to morphine in her chart.
The last time she was in the hospital they loaded her up on Sister M. And she got so loopy we thought she’d had a stroke. She couldn’t complete a sentence. Thoughts were amorphous things floating like clouds far above her grasp. It lasted for weeks, months really. She tried to communicate but couldn't.
The next day I am sitting in the green chair in my mother’s hospital room and she’s methodically examining her cover sheet. She has a pen in one hand and a partially completed crossword but she is not doing the crossword puzzle. Instead she runs the edge of that sheet thru her fingers. When I ask her what she is doing, she has no idea. Finally, she drifts off.
My friend Patti says, “So many of my women friends have been taking care of their mothers longer than their mothers took care of them.”
Good God, I think. Decades.
Now my mother is sitting staring blankly out at nothing, wearing a green hospital robe, a purple DNR wrist band and a heart monitor. She has expressly stated that no rescue attempts should be made in the event she gives out. But she’s not really that sick. She’s 91. She’s in constant pain. She’s often confused, but there is nothing drastically wrong with her, nothing a few months of blood thinner and ten or so other pills a day can’t cure.
My daughter is entering her first year of college. I hope she remembers the instructions I give her on my cellphone as I sit in the parking lot of the hospital.
“Honey, if they want to give me blood thinner, if they want to give me antibiotics, if they want to give me anything, just say no. Let nature have its way. Do you hear me?”
She says that she does, but who knows what it will be like when we're there.
My mother said to me in the hospital: “When my time comes, I don’t want you to be sad. I want you to be happy for me. My life as me is effectively over.”
“I will miss you terribly,” I answer. “But I will be happy for you.”

Homage to Wendy

Wendy Bishop was a writer who died in 2003 of a tumor wrapped around her heart. My friend Dean was her husband. He lives in Alligator Point now and protects sea turtles that come to the beach to lay eggs.

Dean and I walk the beach, talking of sea turtles, guitars, old friends.
“Tell me the name of those again,” I say, pointing to tiny clams that disappear bottoms up in the brown wet sand.
“Donax,” he says.
“That’s right,” I say. “I always think it’s gonads.”

Returning to the thin arm of sand, stretched before the low beach house, Dean sits on the towel while I wade into warm water, my joy meter ticking upwards as the waves canter toward me. And I dive into the murky Gulf, thick with salt and seaweed. Far across the water, the horizon stretches in a long flat line.

“It always changes,” Dean had said. And he’s right. It used to be you had to walk miles for the water to reach your shoulders. And now I’m just twenty or so yards out and it’s plenty deep enough. And yet it’s always the same, too, I think, laying my body on the surface as waves jostle and knead and tease me like a cat with a toy mouse.
Yes, God, this is why I came, for this, for this. And a voice in my head says, this would make a nice poem. Not my voice, of course. It is Wendy whispering, not wondering why I turn up – bad penny that I am. She never scolded me when she was here, just gave me that look sometimes that said, “simmer down.”
And now she exhorts me to clutch the seaweed, the long water grass, brushing my fingers, to breathe in the pungent, ancient scent, to stop simmering now, and live life at a full boil.