I've had Dixie on my mind a lot these past few days, so of course I was relieved to no end when I found a letter from her just now. (I'd say "thrilled to no end" - but I tend to withhold celebrating until I know a few details, and with the details I generally receive, it's more a tearful, thank-love celebration than a blow-out shibang). The envelope looked empty; I could see the blue grid marks through the white paper, and I thought of how many times I've told one person or another, "Just your name in the corner of an envelope will give me something, can be enough." I couldn't remember if I'd ever told Dixie that, and I knew - girl's been in the hospital, after going through absolute hell several times over, this is the first word since she admitted herself a few months ago - I'd be better just taking a breath and reading what she'd given me to read.
So I opened it up and pulled out the tiny note, folded, and with the scraggly edges testifying that somewhere is a little notebook from which she plucked this page. It said, "How are you doing?" and for once, that line stayed with me. This time when I write her, I won't give details of my own life out of obligation - because it's only fair to share my struggles if she's sharing hers; this time I'll tell my own tales and be grateful that she asked for what must be the hundred millionth time. She said more, of course. Her heart continues to suffer from what she calls (I love this) her "old eating disorder." She's gone through awful heart arrythmia (I don't suppose there's any other kind...), which at one point accelerated her heart beat way, way higher than any heart should move. Then it stopped beating. They broke out the paddles and brought her back to me, to us, to the state where she can write me letters and I can write her back. I want to say, "They broke out the paddles, ER style." In some part of me, running deep, but not buried so far down, I want to go back to the days when this sort of scene stuck to the screen, to ER and Chicago Hope. I can't make myself want it completely, though - that ignorance that would feel more comfortable but would mean never knowing them. So, I've heard every ICU joke in the book, (and most people don't even know the book exists); so I could test out of a class on medical abbreviations, and I've gone into a world beyond get well cards - so what? So it hurts, and it's hard, and after a light and joyful session, I could cry my heart out (and probably will at some point; don't worry - the kleenex always pushes it back in) over this ... so, still. Still, suffering, endless, awful, hers, mine, ours, pain. Still, Sara's quiet, unsure-it's-ok-to-be-overwhelmed voice on my answering machine, saying it'd be good to talk; it'd be good to talk soon. And Jenna to track down, and Dave to hope about, and, and. We still aren't ok, and I refuse to settle for that. But in the meantime, while we're fighting and crying and saving lives, (tell me, why it's so less noble when the life you save's your own?) we have each other: the world's best consolation prize... which sounds like a joke but isn't.
When I read Dixie's letter, I started thinking in torch songs. It's a well-established guideline in my world that I don't write poetry when it's coming out as lyrics; the words are never strong enough, and since I don't write music (no matter what I think when I'm loopy off emotion), the words need to be strong enough. Still, I'll let them spill out for catharsis, and yes, I was thinking in torch songs, weaving in and out of music, imagining strong voices to animate my own. A line came around more than once, the words, "what a ridiculous way to teach a teenager to love." I don't have to explain why I'm not crafting lines around it, why it's not a poem-in-progress, but the sentiment was real. I thought again of Valentine's, of the whole television-reflected world, high school dates and dances, first crushes, first kisses, first break-ups. I was plucked out of that world and set down...where? Rural Wisconsin? To learn love in a family of residents, RCs, and therapists - to found life-long (and longer) relationships with people constantly fighting for another day...? This God I don't call God - what was s(he) thinking? How insane is that, truthfully...appropriately...psych hospital insane. And then. How incredible a gift, how right a love to learn. For me. I have this wanna-be-super-glue attachment thing going; the doctors are divided over whether it's a disorder or a gift, and someforce said, "Y'know? I'm thinking, you need a slightly better education than you'd get as a (hopefully)-asexual in high school relationships. I think you'd be better off knowing how far love goes" and I feel like I know. Not as in I've learned it, but as in - I know it - the way you know a person, in a relationship, in a constantly evolving, organic, connected way. I know love like that love, like the love I need to know. And here I am, here we are, trying to put it together as we can; the cards weren't in our favor, so we broke out chalk and played hopscotch. That's where I am. A letter to write. An e-mail from (staff-twin)^ Sara saved until the moment I needed it most. Another letter to write. Another Sara to call.
Now when they talk about loving, I know this is what they mean, what they've always meant, although I didn't know it far too long.
*
Beth gave me this:
"Sometimes things don't go, after all,/ from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel/ faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail/ sometimes a man aims high and all goes well.
"A people sometimes will step back from war;/ elect an honest man; decide they care/ enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor/ Some men become what they were born for.
"Sometimes our best efforts do not go/ amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to./ The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow/ that seemed frozen: may it happen for you."
-Sometimes, Sheenagh Pugh
*
And that is what I/they/we are doing, trying to do, being blessed by the fact that life-as-love is one of those rare things you achieve just in trying to.
...The session today was joyful. I laughed a lot and didn't cry - the first part of course more important than the second. I told him I've been taking walks, that in this weather my imagination puckers with delight, that getting outside, if only to walk (lately every day) is at least as good as sitting around That Old Apartment. He said the relative safety implied in a comparison between my walks and my time in the apartment is a tremendously good sign, and I smiled like sunbeams because I hadn't thought of it, but I believed it right away; I knew, too, it was true. We talked about how going out and coming 'home' Saturday were accomplishments, how it's always about taking care of myself, choosing what I need, not breaking some record for World's Most Apparently Normal Agoraphobic, and so forth. We joked about monster-shadows that aren't quite cast by gerbils yet, but "maybe raccoons"... I told him I've plans to see my dad on Thursday, in Brigadoon on my request. I told him I've eaten lunch "out" twice since I saw him Friday. I said, I'm a little worried I'm doing too much too fast, that soon I'll push too far, and it'll come back to smack me in the nose. Then I said, but it went too far Saturday, and I fell asleep for two hours, had a crappy Sunday, and was back again. I'm not as easily pinned as I was once.
We didn't talk about the decision that doesn't have to be made right away and will not be concrete. I like it that way best for now. I'd like to meet someone new, but I don't want to set up a regimen that's intimidating when I'm progressing right now, with nudges from myself and from the doc. So, as of today, no new doctors. But, we'll check in with that tomorrow.
Mmmm, life is good, when you love enough that it's sometimes painful. And that's really a good deal, all things considered.
I want a map of my heart, with lines of latitude and longitude, regions, counties, cities, towns, historic landmarks, parks, rivers and terrain, and I want to take something like pushpins and mark each one of you there. Not Rogers maybe, but here...in braveheart. In my heart. My silly, beautiful heart that is right now trying to escape through my lips...
~me
^I've been trying to think up a way to designate this Sara from my-sister-Sara-Brave. I like staff-twin because that was a big part of our initial bond; she started working there just as I was admitted. And she's not still working there, but I'm not still living there, so the twinship continues. :)