The News from Here

I seem to be on a sort of biweekly writing-a-post-and-checking-in type of schedule, so here I am.

News:

I had one of those big birthdays recently. Tough to be getting older but, as they say, better than the alternative. My family threw me a lovely party, about twenty people, a mixture of family and friends, and I felt blessed to be among them. My father made a speech similar to the one he had made at the last big birthday I had, in which he describes the milestone year in which I was born: the youngest of his three beatiful children was born, and he finally got admitted to the International Typographers Union after six years of accumulating work experience as a linotype operator. And my sister, just as she had at the last big birthday party, a decade ago, started to cry as she began to raise her glass to make a toast. I hugged her and said, "Don't cry," just as I had the last time. This is the kind of consistency, or repetition, that feels precious.

Today I had a Sunday with my brother. There is a comforting consistency to those days, too. I always pass the same stores as I walk the mile or so from the subway to the nursing home where he lives. One is an Asian place that advertises massage and perhaps some other services, like waxing and manicures. There is a crude drawing in the window that is supposed to be someone giving a massage to a person lying down. Every single time I walk past it, I think the same thing, which is that it looks like one of those Heimlich maneuver posters, even though the "victim" is lying down. I guess it's something about the way it's drawn, just the outline of two figures, and the way the supposed masseur has his hands braced against the person's back in what seems a desperate or aggressive way. Then I sort of chuckle to myself, thinking, no, that's supposed to be someone getting a massage, not being saved from choking.

When I got to my the nursing home, I asked the young woman behind the reception desk if she had seen my brother yet today. I had heard from my sister, who had it from my father, that he had not been feeling well yesterday and didn't get out of bed. (For any first-time readers, my 66-year-old brother is confined to a wheelchair because of a stroke four years ago; his right side is paralyzed, and he cannot talk, except for a couple of words, like "yeah," which he says a lot. Although he cannot talk or write because he has expressive aphasia, he understands everything that is going on around him and that is said to him.) The young woman said that he had been outside in front and had just gone upstairs (he can wheel himself around within the nursing home by propelling the wheelchair with his good foot). When I got up to his room, he was sitting in front of the TV, but the TV wasn't on. I felt a pang of worry, or sadness, but I made a joke, which is what I do, a lot, with him, not knowing what else to do.

"That looks like a great movie," I said, as I approached him from behind.

He was glad to see me, and ready to go out for a walk, but I could tell he was kind of down.

We went for our usual walk, to the video store to get DVDs, then we went in a big loop, walking a few blocks through a quiet part of the neighborhood, away from the commercial street. I walked slowly, pushing the wheelchair, lettting us both feel the late-spring sunshine. We stopped in one of the neighborhood playgrounds, and I sat on a bench in the sun, close to him. I showed him pictures from the birthday party that I had put together in a little album for him.

We stopped at the diner that is across the street from the nursing home, where they all know us and where the waiters will come out to help me push him up the steep ramp to the entrance. When we got to our table, I ordered for us and the waiter brought out a tray of pickles, coleslaw, and chickpea salad. I served my brother some of it, and he picked at it. Then he looked at me. I said, "you're feeling down?" He shook his head, I think to indicate he didn't feel great. Then he, I think, heard the words of my question, and nodded to say yes, he did feel down.

I could not think of one thing to say to make him feel better. I could not think of an activity to propose, or something that he might look forward to. It's excruciating to not be able to help him, or change his situation, but I know that it's important to let him have his feelings and express them as well as he can. I can't always be making jokes to try to cheer him, and myself, up, although I suppose there's a place for that too.

When we went back to the nursing home he seemed a little more comfortable. I told him a story about a recent misadventure of mine involving keys that I thought I had lost (don't ask!), a locksmith, and a lot of money basically thrown out the window (or at the locksmith, to be more exact). He was appropriately amused, disbelieving, rueful, at various places in the narrative. When I told him, "and then of course I found the keys the next day," he shook his head, then shrugged, as if to say, "Well, that's life."

As I was getting ready to leave, I gave him the little book of photos I had made for him. He hadn't realized I meant for him to keep it--he had apparently thought earlier I was just showing him some pictures--and seemed surprised and touched. He nodded, and murmured something.

"You're welcome," I said, and we went back outside, him to have another cigarette, me to be on my way back home. I sat with him for a little while first. Then he looked at me and nodded. I think he's telling me I should get going, but I'm not totally sure that is what he means. So I wait for a broader gesture. He raises his good hand and points somewhere out there, in the direction of the bus. "I should go?" I ask. "yes," he nods. "Okay," I say, "if you insist," joking with him again now. He smiles, acknowledges the joke, waves his hand again. "Yes, go, I'm fine, thank you for coming," is what I understand, and so I go.

Cross Country

It is Saturday night and I have a moment to breathe, so here I am, with an account of my recent doings:

Two weeks ago I got out of town for a winter weekend in the Catskills with the hiking group I joined a few months ago. It was breathtakingly beautiful, lots of snow, crystal clear air. The inn where we stayed was supposed to resemble a Swiss chalet, and I guess it did, not that I've ever been to one. It also reminded me a little bit of places where my parents used to take me when I was young. My mother was a big fan of fresh air and "the country" and she liked taking walks in the winter, so I was reminded of some happy times with her.

I went alone but met some nice people, particularly my roommate, a woman roughly my age with whom I hit it off right away. There was a choice of activities, different groups going snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, a lone woman who went downhill skiing. I chose to go cross-country skiing with my roommate and one other person and it was a blast. I've been on cross-country skis exactly twice in my life, and I had a few wobbly moments, but mostly I did okay. We went to one place on Saturday, and another place, with more dramatic scenery and a wider variety of trails, on Sunday. Sunday the sun came out, and while the grey sky Saturday was lovely in its own way, the bright sunshine on the snow Sunday, contrasted with the dark green of the pine trees and deep shadows of the woods, was heartstoppingly beautiful. As we wended our way in and out of the trees (Sunday it was just two of us), I kept thinking that I had been dropped into the story of Hansel and Gretel (perhaps the vaguely Swiss/German atmosphere of our hotel contributed to that idea).

I loved the silence, so rare in my life full of subway trains and TV and an office environment which is dominated by the drilling and banging sounds of construction these days. As we glided along the tracks of previous skiiers or sometimes made our own, I heard nothing but my own breath, an occasional twig snapping underneath my skis, and that odd creaking, almost groaning sound that the skis sometimes make, so that I kept being startled and thinking there was someone behind me talking to me.

I had taken the bus up to the Catskills up to join the group, since I don't have a car. It took a long time, but I didn't really mind. There's something romantic about being on a bus at night, passing through the sleeping towns. I had a seat to myself for most of the time, so I could happily doze. And once we got off the highway and started traveling west and into the mountains, I felt more and more like I was leaving my normal life behind. I love the names of those little towns in the mountains: Phoenicia (or as the bus driver said, accenting the first syllable, which he pronounced like "phone," and drawing it out dramatically, "PHOA...... neesha"), Margaretville, Shandaken, and, my destination, Big Indian. What a jumble of different histories in those names. At Big Indian, the driver let me out at my "stop," which was a crossroads with a gas station and a little store, both closed. It was night and cold and snowing and I didn't see a soul. I had told the driver I was being picked up, though, and he said, "Look, I think there's a car over there." "Where?" I said, panicked. He pointed, and I dutifully trudged off in the snow, with my wheeled suitcase behind me, as the bus drove away. Then, to my great relief, I saw the lights of the car as it came toward me. A woman opened the door on the passenger side, and said, "Are you here for the hiking club?" "Yes," I said, and got in, ready for adventure.