The Aneurysm, part 1

I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.

— Rumi, Essential Rumi, tr. Coleman Barks, p. 134




March 12, 2009. Thursday. Portland. 7:15 a.m. 24*F. Clear.

Tuesday eve Jeff gave me the news that Elizabeth is in the hospital in Seattle having suffered a double brain aneurysm and pursuant 8-hour surgery to repair them.

She worked for me at the publishing company I ran in Seattle for a number of years. She was my right arm there. Gifted writer. She babysat my oldest when he was very small. She is in her late thirties.

I was standing in our bathroom here in Maine when he told me. Shortly thereafter headed out to meet with the coop moms at Whole Foods. Peter Spence had emailed me & Jeff to give us the news — P. got my auto message saying I was off the internet, but had gotten through to Jeff. E’s husband had asked Peter to get in touch with me.

I left a message for Peter Tuesday night and spoke to him yesterday for about a half hour. Peter had been to visit Elizabeth a couple of times. Tuesday night I’d also tried to reach her family at the ICU at Swedish, where I thought she was.

They had no record of her there. When I spoke to Peter Tuesday he corrected it to say she was at Harborview ICU which made more sense.

It was good to talk to Peter — I so vividly remember him, working with him, his golden retrievers lying around the 19th century pioneer cabins that had become our office space on old Ballard Ave in Seattle.

Peter told me about the caringbridge.org site that’s been set up for updates. I didn’t get into saying I can’t read those right now. He said her wit was intact in her lucid moments and it was a relief to hear that she is still in there.

[to be continued]

Package from Cisco Systems? It's Not a New Router.

"Working with obstacles is life's journey. The warrior is always coming up against dragons."
— Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape, p. 68





Still January 30, 2009

This morning right after the boys left I had an opportunity to visit with a good friend in the neighborhood. She was getting ready to head up to Camp Mechuwana for a winter retreat. We talked for a while.

Walking home I stopped at the Rosemont Market for leek, onion, red bell pepper, domestic feta, tortillas, then headed for home in between the mountains of snow from the plows, shovels, snow blowers. I was feeling a bit frightened and scattered about heading back to an “empty” house.

When I opened the door to the front porch, there was a package for me from Cisco Systems in Seattle. Usually packages from tech companies are for Jeff but this one was clearly addressed to me.

Took me a minute to realize that it was from Julie Wieringa, my former boss at AT&T Wireless, and that she’d probably shipped me a copy of her classical guitar CD.

Indeed. Also included were a lovely letter and two letterpressed books that she made — one a sweet story (illustrated) about a man and his dog, and the other a 6 x 9 letterpressed journal with musical staff pages on the left, lined writing pages on the right. And a letter written by hand in ink — she has a phenomenal fountain pen collection.

If I were in my old life, I would not find the time to write her back, but I’ll probably write her tonight. In my old life I would e-mail her, or Facebook her a reply. Enthusiastically. Lovingly. Instead she’ll get a nice letter, handwritten in ink, on stationery.

All the Names for Snow

"When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn't work anymore, when survival is threatened by seeminly insurmountable problems, an individual life-form — or a species — will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap."
— Eckhart Tolle

Still January 26, 2009

Coming up the walk just a little while ago, the snow had that Very Cold Squeak. We need more words for snow, in all its permutations. Like the Inuit. “Snow” just doesn’t cut it when you’re in the dead of winter.

We need more exciting ways to describe what’s underfoot….like Really F***ing Cold Snow, Deliriously Mushy Snow, Snowman snow, snowball fight snow, Snow that Has Had Freezing Rain Fall on It and Is Now Strong Enough to Support an Eight Year Old Without Them Falling Through. But these types need poetic names! There are just way more types of snow than just “snow”.

Mia’s been writing me letters. It’s great to get cards. Tonight the novelty of writing letters feels slightly worn off, just the way I didn’t want to sit down and write this.

On Friday, another first. Sitting at home in the front room (right now, the massage room) to study instead of going down to the Old Port….staying at home is much cheaper, and I wasn’t feeling all that great…and it became evident that studying at home used to be punctuated with being on the internet.

It’s funny to think that only a month ago this was such a part of my life and that in less than a month I’ve effectively been set free from it. In any case—there would be a period of studying, after which I’d reward myself with some time on Facebook, or checking email. How much brain power and time were spent anticipating these moments or processing these moments afterwards are what scare me. Much more than the 2-3 hours I spent online, on average. Possibly more.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Day

"There's hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness."
— Rumi

January 19, 2009 · Monday
MLK Jr. Day

This day has special significance this year given what’s happening tomorrow. For the first time I get a little wistful that I’m not in Washington. Then I remember — the crowds.

Wake up somewhat grieving email. I imagine people all over Facebook plastering themselves with excitement.

I get over this quickly when our homeschool family coop happens, at our house again, with happy kiddos playing all over the piles of snow the plow left behind.

And then we get to work on the newspaper I’m helping them put together, The Blue Eagle. The kids all made badges last week out of watercolor paper and ribbon, and everyone showed up with theirs this week, and their notebooks.

Some had hand-written news stories about grackles stealing fruit or giant icicles; one had compelling photos of fishing and cub scouts on which he declined to comment. They all decorated a letter to go in the name of the paper on the first page.

Glitches · digital coma

[kids' room, the "before" picture]

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." — Gandhi

Still January 12

Homeschooling coop: we are finally moving forward with an idea the kids had last year — which was to start a kids' newspaper.

Small, to start. Today we came up with a name (The Blue Eagle Newspaper), a first issue pub date (mid-February) and some general assignments / roles, and we made press badges (we had some of Jeff’s professional ones for them to look at).

Not having e-mail makes the assimilation process very interesting. We could have them e-mail stories and photos to Jeff; I could come up with the template and have kids and parents type in their own stories right onto my computer, they could bring them hard-copy and I could type them in….this is one of those tasks that would be in many ways be made easier by email. Or would it?

Sometimes I feel I’ve done a lot of turning my back on communities and people I’m leaving behind, usually by moving. Or is this non-attachment, a healthy letting go, a natural moving on? Moments in the last two weeks I’ve wondered if I’m doing it again—and if I am, why does it feel so freaking good? Like shedding 20 layers of dead skin all at once? So rejuvenating.

There is a deep desire in me at moments to hop online and find out what’s going on with the weather, with the war in Gaza. Definitely I experience and hold more anxiety than I ever realized, which was alleviated (momentarily) a lot of times by sitting down at the computer. The Dead Zone. The Digital Coma. I wonder what the effect is on my children all this time. How it has been to be partially ignored during those online spots.

It’s hard to say what the long-term ramifications of this experiment will be. In all likelihood it will mean much to me, something to those close by, and little or nothing to the world at large. But we can only change ourselves!

And in this case it is changing just about everything! I’m trying to think of what this hasn’t changed for me thus far…….

National Cathedral School · Mrs. Forbes · Sarah E.

“I like opening a letter and thinking myself loved.” – Virginia Woolf

Completely awesome. I just checked our p.o. box up the street here and there was an honest-to-god letter from Sarah Edmunds, a close friend from middle school. We reconnected on Facebook and she was willing to correspond off the internet.

I sent a postcard last week. She photocopied a program from a voice recital we were both part of in the eighth grade, led by Mrs. Forbes at NCS. She wrote a quick note on it; what a huge difference receiving something real and unexpected. So….I stopped by the Paper Patch again because stodgy stationary didn’t seem right to write Sarah back (I have that to write to my mother, who likes it).

So I got a box of something fun. How expressive to write a note, in blue-black ink, to my friend. So different from email. Email: I thought of you. Letter: I love you. Enough to take an hour and write you, only you, a letter.