Saturday, March 10, 2012

What's The Job Description?

For some reason, I feel really stuck today.  As usual, I thought I knew, hours ago, what I wanted to write about -- I've even done a little desultory web-based research, on Mexican Tiger moths, so I wouldn't get the name wrong, but now that I get down to it, my ideas seem flat and uninteresting.  And yet, in my chest, there's that familiar sense of dread, as though at any minute something awful is going to happen.  I have to remind myself to breathe.  All day long.  Tiresome.

Really, there is nothing wrong with my life (well, aside from that heap of junk I've amassed in the driveway, and which I seem unable to move...); how is it that I consistently find myself braced for some sort of rupture, some sort of basic betrayal, which will turn everything upside down again? 
Rationality doesn't seem to apply here -- these fears arise from the center of my chest, where words don't appear to have much impact.  And really, in an odd way, the more placid and benign things become, the more convinced I am that the proverbial 'other shoe' is about to drop.  And this particular shoe is huge, leaden, and aimed right at my head.  It won't be easy getting out from under it.

I want to eat.  I want to cut up an apple, and slice some cheddar cheese, and eat it all, and then maybe repeat the whole process again.  This, even though I've just come back from a wonderful dinner with friends, and I couldn't finish the ample meal I ordered.  The urge to eat when I'm still full is a sure sign that there's something I want to short-circuit, something I want to smother, something I want to keep from surfacing. 

It could have something to do with my brother, now that I think about it.  My brother, and the unfolding drama of his life, which I find both mesmerizing and alarming.  We talked yesterday, and he told me that three weeks ago, some men from Health and Human Services came to his house and took him away.   They kept him in a locked facility, he said, until two days ago, when he simply walked away.  He hitched a ride the six miles into town, he said, and then walked the rest of the way to his trailer.  'Have you ever been taken away and locked up?' he asked me, somewhat plaintively, as if he'd forgotten the whole of our past.  'Now I'm just laying low here, hoping they don't come back.'  Well, this did sound a little weird.

Then I brought up the question of him literally putting his life in the hands of a friend --  someone he's known for all of three years, it seems.   In case of an emergency, he says.  In case of dementia.  It's legal guardianship, he says, but I don't know what this means, and George is remarkably unspecific about that point, or about when, or if, this guardianship is to take effect, and what it entails, in terms of his having any control over his own life at all.  Can this guardian... sell his truck?  Burn his trailer?  Fortunately, I have the name and phone number of the lawyer handling this business, and I plan to call him on Monday, to see what I can learn, without violating attorney-client privilege, of course.  (I don't watch Law & Order for nothing, you know)

But in the meantime, I find myself wondering what my proper role is, in this latest upwelling of drama in George's life.  Perhaps it's unfair, but I can't help reminding myself that, for instance, when he was much younger, and in the Army, George had some dental problems.  But rather than having the necessary work done, to fill or cap his teeth, he chose to have all his teeth pulled.   All of them.  It's something of a shock to see him, when his dentures aren't in.  I find it wrenching.   But the reason I bring this up, in this context, is my suspicion that George is again preparing to do something global and irreversible, in order to mend a problem that, if it exists at all, may be much less extreme than these proposed measures would suggest.

Of course I feel guilty that I'm not on a plane right now, flying out to wherever it is that he lives (although he hasn't asked me to), so I can do... what?  It shames me to say that I don't think we could deal with George coming to live here, with John and me, and the cats, even though, technically, there's enough room.  I feel as though I'm being selfish and cold, but this situation frightens me, and to be frank, I've taken to avoiding elective drama in my life -- the accidental, non-negotiable stuff is quite sufficient to keep me off-balance, thank you very much.  At this particular point in my life, I don't feel I have the strength to be of much use to anyone -- let alone someone like my brother, who seems determined to complicate his life in unnecessary ways.

And again, this brings up that deep central sadness, setting me to think of the distorted reality that was forced on my brothers and me -- and the way our lives still continue to twist and knot, in response to those early years of abandonment and abuse, and abuse and abandonment.  I had actually hoped that, as we got older, all of us would find some sort of recompense.  But a few years ago, my youngest brother died of lung cancer, caused I think only partly by his smoking habit.  In Chinese medicine, the center of the chest, just under the sternum, is where grief resides.  And now George, who was such a wonderful, smart and funny boy, seems poised to warp what he's made of his life into even more torturous shapes than are absolutely necessary.

I feel numbed, and frightened.  Is this how it ends for us -- just a wearisome continuation of those early degradations?  I can't even manage to cry about it now -- it all seems too strange and, to be honest, annoying.

Tomorrow, I'll go out to North Branch again, to the Combat Paper guys and gals, for another few hours of paper-making.  Transforming materials, and listening to people talk about the things that have happened to them.  My only jobs are to bring the milk for coffee, and perhaps wipe down the pulping mill before we turn it on, and then I'll cut cloth into tiny squares.  No matter how awful the wounds these other people carry, I'm not called on to intervene.  No rescue required.  Quiet listening will suffice.  I think this may help.

©  2012     Walter Zimmerman


   


  

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