December 20, Siesta

This morning I woke up with with more purpose than usual. I felt I had the energy to drive myself to the clinic.  On the way to town, we marveled at a rainbow which formed a circle, interrupted by white layers of cloud, around the raising sun.

I met my new family doctor who is a happy talker and whose name contains the word hope. In Spanish. For a reason that I cannot know yet, I felt good about this change. He is a Filipino born and raised in Winnipeg, and looks just like a Japanese sumo wrestler. 

For the last few days I have been more tired than usual. Years ago a friend gave me, as a present, a book called De la fatigue. A philosophical approach, on which I am forced to reflect every day lately. There is something uncanny about how this state has become my most pressing symptom and concern. Somewhat akin to idleness, if I understand correctly how the latter works. One formulates all kinds of projects in one's mind, and they may be of the most exciting nature: write a blog, why not start writing a book for that matter? Order some Christmas presents on line, why not go to the mall and buy them yourself, after careful consideration? Finish that painting which has been waiting for a few months now, why not actually arrange the new atelier that you have decided to set on the second floor? Practice the piano, why not print the fifty page Schubert partition waiting to be measured? Set the Christmas decorations, and so on. The list is unending. And yet, nothing can be done, or should I say, so little as to be almost nothing. As soon as I have practiced the piano for twenty minutes, or laid out the colors, my eyes are asking to close. I need to rest, and that means, sleep. A day without sleep will only add more need of sleep to the next.

In order to offer some amusement to our friend who visited last week, we went to see Aida at the Met, which, thanks to modern technology, is accessible at a theater near you. I thought I would give a try to an activity I used to enjoy before my illness. The theater seats are extremely comfortable, much more so than those of an opera house, and the public, in keeping with a dying form of culture, white haired and never more than fifty heads at all. These days grey hair allows me to fit in quite well. Colin is the odd one out, even if a bit of a bold spot is quite welcome in such company. I am sorry to report that I slept through most of the performance, and while it was our game, for me to wake Colin up when, at the end of the work day, we used to go to the opera in Toronto, things have changed and it is for him to keep me awake, early Saturday afternoon.

It is a difficult feeling to describe. Nothing really hurts. One is to simply go to rest. Nothing dramatic. And yet, this fatigue gives one the impression that life itself is shrinking. I have always been a great defender of siestas, and we used to practice it gladly in our small family, between myself and my parents. On Sunday afternoons, the only day when we were all at home at the same time, we used to close the door of the apartment with determination, and we would almost have hanged a sign on it, like the surrealists used to, which would have said, "poets at work". The siesta so much more enjoyable when some relative or acquaintance would commit the error of calling during those secret hours. The more they rang, or knocked, rang and knocked and shouted, thinking it impossible for us not to hear, being that we lived in such a small apartment, the more we enjoyed pretending we did not hear, we were not there. We never answered, but rejoiced in that exquisite possibility of claiming sleeping time, of steeling sleeping time from those who busied themselves with uncalled-for visits.

Those days are long gone, as my master Proust would say. Never again will I and my parents hide in our respective bedrooms, pretending we're not at home, in order to steal a siesta against the better judgement of people in need of things to say and do, places to go to. Nowadays nobody calls unannounced, visits are planned months in advance, one simply cannot play Oblomov for the sake of sweet sleep. Maybe this is why I find this manifestation of my illness so difficult to bear. This sleep is not stolen for its gifts, for the afternoon dreams which tell more, and more vividly, than the nighttime ones. This is rather becoming the main condition, and while part of it still retains, to my joy, some of those qualities of the in-between vigil and sleep, the accumulation of too many hours of sleep leads one into more ominous unrest.

Whatever the hour of rest will be for you, now that the holidays are coming down the chimney, we wish you good company and sweet afternoons. May the old year end in good cheer, and the new bring you the joys of sunnier dreams.  



















P.S. Snow came down last night and branches bend heavy, blocking the path. On the highway, we met men hunting for coyotes from their parked truck. The dogs are doing the work and satellite tracking devices show their progression, while Rocky goes mad over this intrusion and unusual fuss.
The air is still with snowflakes. From here where winter has finally arrived we wish you again happy, joyful holidays. May all good coyotes be safe, or land safely onto coyote paradise.

yesterday

today

what's with all that barking?

December 5, Barren trees

“I’ve seen that tree many years earlier and it was a most beautiful oak tree, with its large crown. At that time I did not think to paint it. What is in filling out the space with a splodge of green like others do? What is in Nature separated by large spaces, is compressed into a cramped space and overfills and oversatiates the eye, creating an unfavorable and disquieting effect on the viewer. Yet it was the lightning that came from the ether which achieved this feat of creating the space for me to paint the tree, but ... I finished by only painting the distance.”

These are the painter Caspar David Friederich's words and they refer to the portrait of a tree which, after having been hit by lightening, had lost all its leaves and remained the barren, majestic ruin of its former glory. I used to study this German painter's work many years ago, he occupies an important place in my book on melancholia. Cristi sent me this quotation a few days ago, and I had an experience of shock at the sudden reminder of what I used to enjoy so much and am not able to any longer.

The figure of the barren tree is most appropriate to my present condition, and I take that as a good omen. While on my daily walk this morning, I decided to open a new theme in my photo documents, that of barren trees. Those belonging to fall into winter, most often waiting for the next spring to be revived, but also, sometimes, dead. Upon returning home with a few new takes of such trees, and opening this new file, I went through my last year's photographs and discovered, to my wonder, that I have tens and tens of such subjects. It seems I have been interested in lonely barren trees all along.

     

Just like Friedrich remarks, the barren tree allows for space to become evident. Whether the painter achieves his purpose, of painting this space, between branches for instance, and their volume in space, is of lesser importance. He did succeed in seizing the distance between the tree and himself. Otherwise put, maybe, the loneliness of the painter himself, face to face with the tree which we always perceive as lonely when it is barren.

When I had just moved in this house and had just begun our walks along the trail, I used to pass every day by a wonderful old tree, so old and long dead that it had lost all its bark and appeared naked beyond remedy. I had also recently learned that dead trees are most useful for many such critters like the woodpecker, and should not all be taken down. Our own land is filled with dead trees, and they will certainly remain there until returned in decay to the ground. Yet this old, naked tree, I learned to greet every day as I passed by like you greet a neighbor you know from afar but do not talk to. In the absolute solitude of my walks, He reassured me. Until, one day, new owners moved in, and shortly after the old trunk disappeared. I was inexplicably saddened. But what should I have expected for Him?

Not long ago we decided to replace the carpet in so many rooms of the house with hardwood floors. The choice of wood was a most interesting matter. Colin likes pine, and I, for some reason, like the ash, if only for its beautiful name. There was another pretty name in the draw, hickory. We finally decided for both pine and ash, and the work will start next week. It is an opportunity to turn yet again the house upside down, get rid of many things which should have been discarded, yet have found a hiding place and go unnoticed here. For a few nights, between sleep and wakefulness, I wondered what this enterprise was about. It is a wonderful thing, to be sure, to lay wooden floors in the rooms, and let that smell of the Forest take hold of the house. It is also a good thing to imagine that those many ash trees, killed by the ash beetle, will find a new, if artificial life, under Rocky and Alice's clicky and wishy paws. The good neighbor who will do the work assured me that the wood comes from the woods around here, and I took it as the sign of another, lesser known, attachment to the immediately surrounding landscape.

I have said, at the beginning of this note, that the barren tree was a figure of what the painter needs, to understand, or seize, true distance. That which is Barren, in Friedrich's sense, lets the space breathe in between the branches, lets the wind fashion, little by little, nakedness, to the point where it becomes sculpture. That which lets the sky, the earth show their magnitude. All which without the barren trees remains overwhelming, impossible to grasp.

November 21, Another kind of love

ancient sun

When we got the FaceTime connection my piano teacher appeared like a magician's illusion and took me by surprise. Her black hair quickly wrapped in a chignon, a gray vest of asymmetric collar kept in place by an oversized button, red. Thin silver rimmed glasses next to which the earphone cables looked like old fashioned eye-ware chains. Behind her, on the piano, piles of books. Yellow walls covered in prints, a lovely small room where everything seemed within reach.

It felt like we were sharing a room, closely. The sentiment perdured even as we had to fiddle with equipment so that she may see my hands and, thankfully, correct my physical approach of the instrument.

I believe the most fortunate of students are those who had the chance to be taught by people they adored. Forget the 10000 hours of practice as the road to fame and riches. I choose my words knowingly, for this has been one of the most enviable chances I was granted. To be taught, especially when young, by people I adored. Foreign languages, painting, Latin. At the university, a few professors whose knowledge I admired, if from far. Now, miraculously, my piano teacher. I say miraculously because one does not expect to experience again such emotions as are the privilege of childhood and young age.

Why is it important that one be in the throws of love in the presence of one's teacher? I am sure the answer presents itself readily. There are teachers who hand out, just like handouts, some form of knowledge, that which we call today information. And there are those rare encounters where the teacher entrusts her or his pupils with secrets more precious than knowledge. The secret is, again, out in the open. And yet, not for everybody to grasp. Knowledge without affect, without some measure of tenderness, admiration, love, which teacher and pupil alike may share, has no value.

Curiously, what I remember most vividly about the first three teachers I have named is their hands. I must have spent a lot of time watching them. Seventy year old, sixty- and thirty-something old hands. The age did not seem to matter. All such beautifully expressive hands; the first two, I imagined then, because of spending so much time writing; the third, because of drawing. The manner in which they held the pencil - they used mechanical, metal pencils to write in those days - witnessed, in my mind, to the wealth of their knowledge. As for drawing, nothing could equal the elegance of her holding le charbon, while doing esquisses.

I of course also adored my mother's hands. For wholly different reasons: do hair,  caress, make gifts, embrace. Her marvelous lips seemed to kiss even when smiling.

It is a common misconception that teaching has something to do with transference. Students would transfer some of the feelings they hold for they parents upon their teachers. I hope this is a misconception only, for my experience would then indicate that students either love their parents very little, or hate them a great deal. If this were true, then I would have had to put up with a lot of misdirected affect. For my own salvation, I prefer to think that the admiration, or rather adoration, as I like to call it, of the teacher, has to do with love of a different kind. Love for what the teachers know lovingly; or, we love them, because they tell us about the love they hold for the object of their teaching. We come together in the hope that we, too, will get to experience that feeling. Otherwise, what good would have been my love affair with Latin, a language which I never used otherwise than to hold in my heart?

My piano teacher has, of course, beautifully expressive hands. Their beauty only revealed to those fortunate enough to take lessons with her, and see her play. For such is the secret of this kind of beauty. Not apparent to whomever, whenever, but immediately obvious to she who would like to join in that kind of knowledge. Again, the word is not appropriate. These hands know, indeed, marvelous things, which came to them down the river of time. They repeat gestures which may have been deployed by somebody hundreds of years ago. The words we use today, hardly generous in describing the miracle of communication with those who came before us: transmission we say, as if speaking about a radio cast. I like to think of that communication, rather, as something akin to our relationship to the sun.

Be that as it may, and even if we were to use the word transmission, I am unendingly thankful to receive such gifts as those devised by Bartok, with whom we consort through the graceful teachings of my long distance medium and teacher; or by Schubert, and the wonder of these other, all knowing, superb old hands:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Ak7Tk9B3s

October 31, Mine and Yours

Angela writes:

It is raining and I contemplate with surprise how little of the Sandy storm made itself present for us here. Strange acting of calamity: for those in the middle of it, the world comes to a stop; for others, maybe not very far away, the same span of time is marked by some inconvenience.


Yesterday we walked along the trail and I got some breathtaking pictures of the sky above the county, without knowing clearly what those same clouds had brought with them somewhere else. Amazing what a little machine like the iPhone can grasp of the grandeur of such phenomena. Or is it that, to such grandeur, our means of intervention are secondary?

All that can be said at the sight of these pictures is, that I was there to witness it. Very little know-how went into the seizing of these cloud formations, except for my being prepared. If such renderings were ever to be properly printed, and presented in a public space, they could, I suppose, be called art. And yet the only artistry at work was that of natural elements at play.













Not long ago we had the visit of my cousin and her two children, grown up inquirers of all things worthy of inquiry. The topics addressed during their stay were numerous, yet the one which kept us awake overnight, believe it or not, was the question of art, and of who can call themselves an artist. Tudor, our lovely nephew, among many other things a dandy if one is yet to have survived the turn of the past centuries, wants to know. Not least because his sister Oana is an artist, who, like all such respectable fellows, bypasses the potential riches promised by lucrative endeavors like her brother's. Her brother, generous in turn, is ready to accept that an artist is one who makes art, even if they take a loss. For the sake of the argument, I contradict, and maintain that an artist can only call themselves such if they bring their work out in the open, to the public. By public of course I do not mean the immediate family, neither one's well intentioned friends and acquaintances, but rather people one does not know.

It is difficult for Tudor to accept that one who plays their bongos (his example) in the solitude of their home is not an artist in my definition. I say, they are not artists, but rather they play bongos. Just as I am not a painter, but rather somebody who sometimes paints. And so long as I will not expose a meaningful body of works, I will simply be one who spends some of her time in such a fashion.

From there, not surprisingly, at least not for me, we went on to speak about love and loss. Yes, this is how far the question of one's coming out with the fruit of their artistic expression took us. A question of definition again. Can love call itself such, if it is not built on the fear of the loss of the beloved? I ask. One condition too difficult to accept without putting up a vigorous struggle. And just like in the case of art, an unjust prerequisite. Why should anybody need the accord, or recognition, of anybody else than oneself, in order to keep doing what they enjoy, and which they cheerfully and freely may call art? For themselves alone to take or leave, for themselves to appreciate.
Likewise in love, the lover should be free to say, I love because I feel like it right now, and I will stop loving when this object will stop giving me what I expect.

Meanwhile, according to my position, neither is for me to take or leave. In art it would make such an occupation deserving of the name hobby. In love the take it or leave it rule makes the relationship a partnership of sorts. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that. I am tempted to say, that is, mostly and maybe rightfully, the form relationships take nowadays. As for love, where the one who loves is concerned with the needs and wants of the beloved, well, for better or for worse, such relationships are on the wane. Who would want to live one's life hanging on the affections of another than oneself?

Is this not what happens, when we take our art, whatever that may be, to strangers, and ask them what they think of it? It is a difficult place to be in, and in a world where self- sufficiency is the name of the most sought after condition, to depend on another's judgement, or passion, or compassion for that matter, is strictly unacceptable.

No wonder that a young and sensitive person may, sometimes, over such matters, loose sleep.

October 19, Sugar Molecule

Angela writes:

Ottawa under heavy rain and fast winds is not much to look at. We could not even get out of the car to go and eat somewhere afterwards. I had had to fast before the test, which took almost three hours. That is because one needs to wait for that sugar molecule, as they call it, to come out of the metal syringe, itself encased in a metal box, all of which are handled with gloves, and travel deep into the body of the testee. This it will eventually light up from the inside.

The lung doctor called me yesterday to let me know that the pet scan shows an area of mild activity, not characteristic of cancer, probably an inflammation of sorts. The results are non-specific again, or inconclusive. I have two options: either wait for another three months and get another cat scan of the lung, and again every three months after, for two years; or have the surgeon go in and remove this formation, with the risk, of course, that upon biopsy the extirpation prove to have been unnecessary. In spite of all the expensive, so-called non-invasive imaging techniques, the scalpel remains the most trustworthy instrument.

Since I was given a choice, I chose to wait.

Some of my friends or colleagues, with whom I communicate from time to time, give me an idea of how they imagine convalescence. Since the university professor’s most important complaint is to have not enough time to read and write, to do research as it is referred to, because of teaching and other administrative duties, a character on sick leave, or, even better, on disability, such one like myself, would certainly take advantage of all the time freed up by the disease in order to, while taking pills, read and write. And, in case that person, on account of some debilitating condition, were unable to write, they would certainly at least read voraciously all those excellent books they were not able to get into while doing the work required by their salaried condition.

To this question I have to again answer in the negative. No, I do not read. The fact that I lay, apparently still, propped on a pillow, on my couch, does not mean that I am comfortable. Indeed, as the traveling sugar molecule would tell you, if it could speak, the condition of the opium eater that I have become is one of double discomfort: a fire burning within the body, especially along the spine, which takes not kindly the loss of one of its member vertebrae; and a film of ice coating the outer envelope of this burning body, the skin. If for Scheherazade it was not difficult to answer the riddle of the one who walks dressed and undressed at the same time, by wrapping herself in a fishing net, for me the answer appears less easy to grasp.

Between reading books, after fifty years of book reading, and reading music, as I now do, as a beginner, there lies a difference that in fact allows me to take pleasure in the second and reject the first. Reading music is at this point the recognition of a direction, and a rhythm for the hands. For the moment it is all about the hands, and the manner in which, without grasping anything whatsoever, they bring about some lovely and ephemeral formation of sound. No real meaning beyond that deciphering, if not the correspondence between sound and a small, well-defined gesture. The reading of books, now an old if not respectably competent endeavor, is much more about finding the sought-after meaning. Why this, why that, and how it came to be. All the awe at the deciphering of signs, which makes reading so enjoyable in the beginning, now lost. The attention we must bestow upon such an occupation, much more purposeful than the one we apply to hitting the right note.

I am not, of course, against reading, and if I were, it would take longer than this to justify. Yet for those who consider it to be the most desirable of the minor, low energy actions to fill the day of the proverbial patient, I suggest that the fictional nature of all reading can only offer false, self serving answers. The pleasures of fiction can easily hide the struggle at hand. While the clearly imperfect exercise of one’s hands, in painting and music for instance, gives the full measure of the body’s mood.

October 9, Giving Thanks for Bartok

Angela writes:


I would like to wish you a very happy thanksgiving week. This is a marvelous holiday to which I used to pay little attention when I was younger. It did not belong to my childhood and I did not fully understand it, mainly because when one is young, one thinks less of what one has, or has been given, than of what one is poised to expect and receive. This is not only true of the young, it is also true of the university setting of which, for so long, I have been a part.

It is wondrous to be, as I am right now, the object of the attentions of those who are around you and notice the manner in which they achieve such presence. I am certainly wary of judging those overwhelmed by their work, if not by life. I have been there, where there was no time for those far away. Not to speak about those left on the sidelines. I had a job to do, and no matter how hard I tried, I never got it quite right. Or so it seemed. That is how mother university (or is it a father?) trains her offspring.

On the other hand, people who have other occupations than the academic seem to have an easier time. With the understandable exception of the illness-fobic, and there are a few I came to uncover. Yet all are saved by the retired, and I take that in the wide sense of the word. Oh, the retired! Those who have given up ambition! Where would we be without them, who fortunately have time to take care of the ill, the busy and the stressed out?

You may remember that I was apprehensive about going to Montreal. Fortunately, the first day I had there, Heidi spent a whole afternoon with me. Not because she did not have more pressing things to do. She came to see me and alluded right away to the physiotherapist who wanted me to practice the computer keyboard, no matter what words or numbers would cross my mind and come under my fingers. What a narrow use of my precious energy, she mused. For her, who, among other talents, including writing, is an accomplished musician, a keyboard is a piano keyboard first. We went to the music store to look up pianos. And at the end of another couple of hours, we came up with a choice.

While waiting for my keyboard here in Springbrook, I started looking into some of the rudiments of this trade. My long distance teacher sent right away a whole cahier with music exercises put together by the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok for his son. Of course these exercises contain a lot of motifs which used to fill my childhood's everyday musical landscape.

Now the keyboard is here, looking out over the turning foliage and the everyday more barren trees. And I have to say, the effort it takes to work those keys is very different than what it takes to write on a keypad. I have the sensation of touching something original, I would venture to say from before writing, even if I never thought of the writing keyboard as the approximate replacement of a more authentic one, which would by now be lost. But there is this visceral pleasure contained in the pushing of a key and that resulting sound, hopefully the right one, which should come out and greet you with what feels like encouragement. Not to speak about the effects of a series of sounds, which, in the right order and with due exercise, may begin to make sense. When I am not practicing, I listen to a recording of this music, while doing my painting. There is ever less time left for me in one day. And since I only have a few hours of active energy to begin with, i do not quite know how to give myself to these tasks, one more pleasurable than the other. I am afraid the first casualty of the true keyboard, you might have noticed, was the computer.

That is how, for this thanksgiving, I had to give thanks for all the friendship which has accompanied us for the last year. Soon it will be a year since Colin wrote a long letter to my family doctor, asking not only for the appropriate pain medication, but for a serious investigation of the pain in my back. What else can I wish for, if not to grasp the one thing to be thankful for, even as life put us through her blind, cruel workings.

September 29, Passing Through

Angela writes:

As soon as we got on the train it felt like we should do this more often. The seats were comfortable and unusual, yet not new. I assumed VIA may make new out of other companies' old holdings. Since we've been living in the country, we are not quite as fascinated by the countryside sites swiftly running by the train window. We took out our various writing tools and set out to do some writing.

Coming to Montreal is always a bittersweet experience. It throws me back almost three decades ago when I lived here for four years during my graduate training. Bitter because I was poor and wary of the future in those days, but mostly because I only knew the city in winter. In order to save on rent, and to spend time with my parents, I would leave at the end of every school year for Calgary, and came back to Montreal in fall. Nobody figured why I would do such a thing, why I would leave this cultured city precisely when things were poised to blossom. Yet those who know the hypnotic appeal of the Rockies will understand.

That is how this city, to this day, only presents itself to me under its most difficult appearance: windy cold winters with little sun and slush up to one's knees. I yearned for Alberta's solid, white-particle winter breath. For the infinite semicircular horizons, the white sun, the chinook's transforming incursions by which winter went into spring every few weeks. And, of course, for the premier Lougheed's largesse, that which had given me a scholarship to go to study in Montreal.

Whatever I got in Montreal, I had to wrestle out of it. The French language was not given, I had to insist that people speak French to me, rather than English, and it was not obvious why that would be so. Moreover, some things remained equal wherever I went. In Alberta, just like in Quebec, and later in Ontario, I was and am still taken, today, for a traveller. Une voyageuse. You are visiting? En visite chez nous? ask the more polite among those who enter the conversation. It would be easy for me to say yes, after all it was and still is true in a sense. Just like the French from France will not accept that I come from Canada but want to know where exactly, that is, originally, do I come from. Le sang ne se fait pas eau. Blood does not turn into water. They can tell that Canada is not quite blood where I am concerned.

When the time came to defend my thesis, I travelled to Montreal from Calgary, where I had gone back to live. I was honored, and it was an overwhelmingly pleasant surprise to have my friend Catherine attend the defense. She, who was never as blissfully ignorant as I, said nothing further about how this process usually unfolds. At the corner of the table, a woman, by all appearances homeless, took a seat. She sat in through the whole procedure and nobody seemed aware of her being there at all. As if she did not exist. Somewhere in the back of my mind, in spite and beyond the anguish such events are bound to produce, I thought she might be a ghost only visible to my eyes, an angel in disguise.

Years later I had to come back to this same university, this time as an examiner. And then I found rooms full of the friends and relatives of the defendant, all poised to praise publicly the accomplishments of their friend and kin. The defense, which in my case had been some sort of a disruption in the day of those supposed to fill the seats of yet another committee, could be what it was supposed to be. A celebration. Particularly when the blood is at home and not just visiting from elsewhere.

Of course when I got back to Calgary my mother organized a big party for me, and all our Romanian friends came to the feast, like they always did when she was inviting. They certainly and rightfully came as much for her as for me. But this was in fact a private, confidential celebration. My parents were convinced I had accomplished something important, without knowing what. Thanks to that, I had to believe it myself. If I received so little recognition from the public sphere - and years would have to go by before I would get some of that -, it was, no doubt, because I had chosen a particularly difficult group to call mine.

September 27, Less than 100%

Angela writes:

I had just been moved from the scan gurney onto the hospital bed waiting next to it and was trying to follow instructions. Not to cough in spite of the saline solution which, forced into my lungs, was now trying to come upwards and out. Coughing would further trouble the lung which had been stirred. The doctor comes smiling before me and by now I know he is smiling simply because such is his fortunate disposition. His name and waving long beard, black streamed with timid white tidings, rimes with mujahideen, while his disposition, at odds with that rime, makes him immediately lovable.

Still wearing the radiation-proof costume recalling a Scottish clan's green and blue plaid, he brings under my eyes a vial of clear, water-like liquid. Look at this, he says proudly, you see? There's the matter we just extracted. I have to look very closely, the "matter" consists of a few minuscule bubbles similar to those Perrier would yield, or champagne. I try to be excited about this harvest, he certainly is and I could only hope the evidence we needed is trapped in there and relevant.

I had been awarded that which only a few days ago seemed preferable to the imaging tests. A biopsy, that is, a procedure with a higher degree of eloquence, physical, intrusive, and painful to boot. Three hours later we were out in the Kingston windy sun, the lake breathing almost furious at our feet. Another appointment was waiting, the pain clinic which I had not dared reschedule since one only gets a shot at it once every two years. I had not considered what fasting for about fourteen hours, and a fine needle pushing slowly into your lung, can do together. At the clinic, three forms were waiting to be filled.

As applications for government grants go, the one this researcher uses, in order to build up the body of pain under investigation, is seventeen pages long. Between four in the afternoon, and six in the morning of the next day, I slept. Intermittent and belabored sleep, with the lung just punctured making itself known at every breath. At night I woke up and did my exercises, wondering whether I would be able to take this planned trip to Montreal. I very much doubted I would. Two tests later, I only had one aching lung to show for myself.

The morning came, cool and sunny, once again offering its promise to those ready to march on as they say. Sleep can perform miracles and I had slept through difficult breathing and the fear that my trustworthy lung was betraying me. I decided that I would go to Montreal against the odds, if only because four days without Colin is too much to bear. Come what may.

What came was the phone call. The lung specialist, also known as the iPhone doctor, was as prompt, if not better, than he had declared. The biopsy showed infection and/or inflammation, but not cancer. While I was ready to give in to my joy, he was not ready to let me. It is not a 100% certain diagnosis. The needle might still have taken a sample from an area adjacent to a cancerous formation, which could have been missed, etc. I said I was happy with less than 100%. I have not known much of 100% of anything at anytime. Particularly so when it comes to cancer. He disagreed, and held on to his quest of the 100%. We are still waiting for a pet scan for which we will travel to Ottawa. If that shows a hot spot where the shadow is, then we will have the surgeon go in and remove it.

Still, I insist, it is good news, we have moved up from 42% possibility of cancer to, say, little under 100% (I do not have the exact number here) possibility of not cancer. That's good enough for me anyway. In the evening, heartened by the less than 100% but still good enough news, we got to read the report of the skull scan which was waiting, unopened. The brain, as I learn, is enveloped in a porous tissue, called arachnoid mater. A translucent spiderweb which gives way, through granulation, to light formations in the darkness of the skull. This, in the first report, appeared as "lucency". A spot of shining like that of the moon, and rime to "lunacy". In there the fear of a myeloma formation took shelter. As it turns out, thanks to that cat scan where I could not contain my tears, it was simply the spiderweb's doings, which, ignorant of percentage, deploys its inconsistencies in the fullness of time. A bit of light, a bit of shining, not cancer.

September 22, For Alberto

Angela writes: Last night we saw the film Certified Copy by Abbas Kiarostami. I had had a particularly sad day, and the film somehow brought me back from my sorrow. Colin found a way to leave work and come with me to Trenton where the cat scan was scheduled. Often if I am on my own I can bear the difficulty of such tests with some stoicism, but as soon as he is with me, I let go. He is the perfect medium for tears. I have been to this hospital many times in the past year. I used to prefer it to others because it is small and easy to reach. Yesterday, nevertheless, this submission to imaging machines had reached some critical point and I found it difficult to even bring myself to go through the motions. For the first time, I was almost wishing for a more painful, physical, more real procedure. That something should be so painless, and yet so threatening, felt very much like mental torture. Every time a lay on the narrow gurney that goes into the machine, it is as if I am about to open one of two doors: one that leads to the normal, the other, to the pathological diagnostic. I wish so badly to open the right door, but the chances, optimistically speaking, are at most one out of two. If I used to lie still at the centre of the radiation machine, I realize today, it was because, precisely, it was treatment, and not diagnostic I was undergoing. I felt very little discomfort while knowing that the attack, the aggression was there and hopefully working for me. That in fact allowed for some exorcism, together with the exercise of courage. When the machine – and they all resemble each other, scanner, magnetic resonance, radiation – is used in order to read the inside of the body, something terrible occurs, especially when one, like myself at the present, thinks they are beginning to do better. All that work to become stronger can be wiped out by an image and the shadiest of images will give the lie to our subjective, hopeful idea. Already weak as I was entering the room, I kept loosing control by the second, so much more when I noticed that the technician who was going to do this test was one who had done other tests for me, in Belleville. Everything may become an ominous sign. I lay down and the woman in charge of positioning me wrapped a strap over my forehead so I may not move. As I went in, tears started streaming down my temples and try as I may, I could not stop them. I definitely did not want to start sobbing, which would really have shaken the whole of my body, head included. I had made the mistake of crossing my arms over my stomach and it was too late to change that; such a posture obstructed the deep breathing that might have put an end to this attack. Fortunately the head scan is very short. Somehow the two in charge had noticed I was crying although I always think they do not really see much about the person going into the machine. The girl brought tissues, which, light as feathers, took flight from the box and could not be grasped. They would have been useless anyhow, hospital tissues, ridiculously small. I got up in one straight motion from the gurney thinking that less than a year ago I would not have been able to get up on my own. I do not know why this film, which we watched later at night, was such a liberation for me. I encourage you to see it. The drama, which unfolds between two charming strangers who could be meant for each other, takes place in Florence. Of course, that would be enough to lighten anybody’s chagrin, for there is this atemporal, I dare say eternal quality to everything in that land, from cypresses to pots of flowers to statues of which the very copy of the copy is already antique. Everything the eye apprehends is the old copy of something so much older as to be immemorial. And yet people keep living there, in the here and now, and in each one of them something a bit off makes one wonder if the people themselves are not somehow the lovely ghost of somebody who lived amidst those walls a long time ago. Which made me wonder if I was not, right now, repeating perhaps an older, perhaps an immemorial story myself …

September 20, Iron Drama

Angela writes: Before every appointment for a new test, I go through a bit of madness, which can last for a few minutes, hours, or days. Or maybe I should call it a creation of signs, like that which occurs in analysis, as Heidi reminded me today. Confronted with silence, the analyst may sometimes provoke in her patient some sort of a physiological symptom supposed to speak on behalf of the speechless analysand. Under my circumstances, I often play both roles, I am the analyst and the analysand. Needless to say I prefer the scarcity of signs nowadays. Somehow, I tend to believe that signs most often foreshadow the ominous; I admit to a tendency to expect strife rather than easy conclusion.

A few weeks ago I was due for those scan and x-rays which ended sending me for more biopsy and scans. While preparing to leave for the hospital, I somehow succeeded to tie up my necklace, made of small amethyst crosses linked by a very fine chain, into as many impossible knots. By some automatic, mindless repetition of motion, I had been folding it in two, then four, then eight. And just before taking the test, it seemed of utmost importance that I be able to bring the necklace back to its normal condition.

Three weeks later, when we finally got an appointment to see the lung specialist you have read about, I was preparing myself for this visit, at the house in Belleville again. (It appears that that house has something to do with the investigation of ill fittings.) I took out of the closet one of my favorite dresses, made of light blue linen, and perfect for the dying summer day the next day was going to be. I am not sure it needed any ironing at all. Yet to make it better, I put it in the drier and set it for “Touch-up”. I knew full well that linen is a touchy fabric, but tried my luck nonetheless.

Twenty minutes later, my dress looked like a piece of cloth meant for cleaning some very clean floors. I panicked like I rarely do. I was hungry, weak and disheartened. Went rapidly in my mind through all the stores I knew of in Belleville, where I could find an iron to buy, because of course, thanks to the “touch-up” function, I did not have one in the house. I threw myself in the car, almost fainting in the heat of the day. I drove to the closest hardware store only to find out that they did not carry such things. My only hope was Sears, the store across the city, foundation of the daunting Belleville mall. It was rush hour and Belleville traffic was even slower than it regularly and predictably is.

Half an hour later I was contemplating the selection that venerable department store had to offer. Not one iron priced over $29.95. I did need an iron very badly, but did not want to spend small money on new trash. Finally, looking them over again, I noticed in a corner, hidden and unremarkable on account precisely of its beauty, a green iron bearing flowers daintily engraved, and the promise of extreme ecological efficiency. German technology made in Germany. I could not have asked for better. It took another half an hour to get to pay for it, in spite of the store being empty. And the cashier did try, as they always do, to dissuade me from buying this object, on account of its price, which was going to come down the next day. Alas, sometimes one can simply not wait until tomorrow. I was needed for lung investigations in Kingston at 9 in the morning, so I insisted that I buy my iron as it was, and rushed home, flushed with that sensation of at once guilt and joy of having done something morally reprehensible.

Belleville marina

The next hour I remember as one of the most peaceful I experienced of late. Listening to the radio, where the story of a children’s show of yore was unfolding, I was brought back to my own youth, when I used to iron in the company of what was then called “radiophonic theater”. I put my new, perfect, ecologically friendly ironing machine to good use, and righted the wrong I had done by trying to quickly touch-up the precious, fussy linen. By the time Colin made it home, all traces of panic or distress had been ironed out.

September 19, Young and Old

Angela writes:

A wooden box with rows of bolts on the one side, neatly cut hollow circles on the other. I was to unscrew the bolts out of their nut and screw them again on the opposite side. This, with my left, weaker hand. A deck of cards that I was to shuffle with my left hand again. Pens ordered in a row, which I had to pick one by one with two fingers and replace at the end of the row, in a repetitive semicircular motion. These simple frames have all the appearance of a dream made of disjointed scenes, yet they belong to the training towards recovery I undergo once a week. As you can tell, keyboard exercises are the least surrealist of the propositions offered to me.

For the last few evenings we have watched a couple of documentaries about the life of two silent monastic orders. The Ordre des Chartreux, in the French Alps, and the Discalced Order of Carmelites, in London. The monks in the first, the nuns in the second, dedicate their lives to prayer and contemplation. I had wanted for a long time to know something about life lived in silence, silence almost absolute, except for assigned times when the secluded are allowed to engage in conversation among themselves.

What I found most astonishing is the fact that the more difficult – physically difficult – tasks like gardening (in the Alps it begins with snow still high on the ground) and cooking, sewing clothes, shaving, laundry, all in the service of the community, are accomplished by the older of the brothers and sisters. And by “older” I mean quite old, considering that these groups, small in numbers already, have a precious few members under forty years of age.

It was the prioress of the Carmelites who helped me understand why. She tells the story of her own entering into faith, which took about eighteen years after her entering the order. She alluded to how, busy with work, with the daily chores, she had no time to face herself and therefore fell into deep spiritual drifting, doubt, maybe the despair of not being sure of anything any longer. Such a state, the melancholy or acedia of the cloistered, cannot be cured but by study, self-examination and prayer. In other words, the young – and again, by young we understand here the able bodied at the stronger pole of the spectrum – are supposed to work much more towards reaching that state of self-understanding, than to contribute, through the execution of tasks, to the well-being of the community. As time goes by, and one is better advanced into accepting one’s condition and place, one can begin to give more to those with whom she shares her life and beliefs.

The gardener and cook of the Chartreux was so old, his body so feeble, that he had to lean on the spade with which he was digging his garden in order to move from place to place. The tailor’s neck, so bent as to resemble a flamingo’s. His vertebrae a crown of knots under the hand of the brother patiently rubbing an ointment onto the old man’s shoulders and back.

Nevertheless, the old and very old have now reached a place where the work of the spirit is mostly done. The reading, the praying, the contemplation and learning, are more urgently a task for the young. And in a reversal of the order of things we are accustomed to, the more difficult, more exigent – including bodily – of tasks, are deemed not to be the physical ones. Not that there is not a part of physicality in prayer and learning, of course there is. But it remains that all of the able body’s energies are employed towards the sustenance of a yet doubtful soul. As soon as that part of learning is achieved, or achieved mostly, the body, now feeble and fatigued, is ready to put itself into the service of the necessities of life.

god's ribs

It is a marvelous use these orders make, of the old. So long as they can move. While we, seculars, wait for later to possibly address the needs of the soul, and put all our young energies into the service of the body, youthful appearance including. And keep postponing the day when we should look at the nakedness of our flamingo spine.

All the way hoping, that such a day should never come to us.

September 14, Reading from the Book of Nature

Angela writes:

We live in the midst of a colony of chipmunks. At this time of the year they gather acorns for the winter. This year their task is accomplished with more fervor than before. Every morning we open the door to the outside only to step into a pile of leafy branches ripped away by careless riders avid to acquire as many oak nuts as critterly possible. The looting accompanied by screams and squabbling. I hear this is a new habit; the old generations used to be known for the delicate method by which they separated the nut out of its shell.

It might be, I hear, sign of the terror that the coming of a very harsh winter instills in those who have not set aside enough for the dark season.

This is quite how I feel while writing here. Writing used to be about careful planning and only opening the shell of promising ideas. The rest, passion, imagination, fear, was left for later. Yet since I do not know what winter holds in store for me, I will try to set aside as many words as I can, before loosing grasp of my branches.

On the other hand, what a marvelous experience, that of the hibernation of the reading and writing animal we have become. This is the second time I am tested by such an interruption of purpose. The first time it happened 33 years ago.

Neither the year before, nor the year after my coming to Canada, did I read any book, or did I write a line outside the aching letters addressed to my mother. As soon as I set foot in this country, I thought the best way to learn its language would be to read more books in English. Such had been the case when I was a student back home. And because my favorite novels in those days were Latin-American, I bought a pile of translations of those into English. I thought you learned a language by reading books you loved. As it turned out, I became immediately impatient, if not bored. Those novels could teach me nothing of the new life I was exposed to, like a naked body exposed to the burning sun, in need of cover. What they did was to incessantly remind me of the life I had left behind. Ordinary, tacky fashion magazines, tabloids, the Calgary Sun, taught me more, more shockingly and efficiently, and so did all those hours of sitting, scared and befuddled, in front of the incomprehensible television set.

Once a year or so of such learning went by, I was ready to go back to school.

I ignore what kind of school I am attending now. I cannot read but I do not miss my readings, those which have been second nature for me for so long will not teach me what I need to know under my new circumstances. Just as I do not find succor in your guide to gentle, non-toxic healing. The other day, listening to the French CBC as I do lately, I heard a French philosopher extol the advantages of “reading from the book of nature”. Having published some fifty books or so, he discovered that nature has more to teach us than the printed word. In order to make that point, he performs in a play, alongside twenty thousand bees also called to bear the heat of the stage.

one way of reading from that book

But who has the time, I ask, to "read from the book of nature”? Ill parents lying on hospital beds and waiting for another morning, children like Marius who wants to know where we go to from here and weather we come back again after, patients like myself who, while waiting for another test, jealously watch the multitude of critters who carry on preparing for winter, blissfully ignorant of imaging techniques. And people like our sister in law Robyn, whose job it is to bring that which used to be called nature back to the city; and who, incidentally, also keeps bees. But be warned: whatever we get to glimpse out of this book of nature under the form of some understanding becomes, even for those who have got hold of it, one more impenetrable secret to preserve.

September 12, Speaking in Tongues

Angela writes:

Not long ago our niece Grace, who was visiting with her family, asked me a question many an adult would be advised to ask, including of themselves. She said that Madame had instructed her pupils not to translate from English when they were practicing their French. Yet, after a few days in our house, Grace wondered how this rule of language was working in my case? Was Madame right? Did I ever translate? And if so, from what language?

You will agree that such a question is not easy to answer, to say the least. I was here before a very thoughtful child, and I better chose my words wisely. I could hardly say I was not translating, since that would be close to impossible, especially when – as she had rightfully observed – all these other fragments of language keep wandering through my brain uninvited, blind and rueful. If I am to answer truthfully, I will have to observe, like an outsider, my practice.

Our morning walks – mine and Rocky’s – on the trail, are the place to start. I have called this old railroad trail that used to cross Canada from shore to shore, now reduced to a path for hunters in search of game atop their ATVs, many things since we moved here. Right now I call it the trail of confession and promise. On the way out, eastward, I discuss those things that I consider reprehensible in my recent behavior. They usually concern the manner in which I give in to my fear. This illness has weakened my resolve and brought to their creaky knees all those years of philosophical reading, writing and teaching. Does philosophy teach us how to die? Theoretically yes, maybe. Practically, very little. Between Montaigne, who thinks it does, and Derrida, who only a few years ago found out, not unlike myself, that it does not, I am torn and astray. Theory bends its proud neck under the threat of crossing from this to the other world. One is left with a few grains of dust in one’s hand, the grains of foolish knowledge.

On the way back, westwards, I turn to the Saints. To them – that is, to the ones with whom I have a relationship – I make a promise. We have discussed these weaknesses many times, and my promises are renewed anew without much remorse. They may or may not be kept; the important thing is to keep working on that construction of resolve. Which in the end may prove to be helpful.

Here I come finally to my topic. A person in my condition, most often in the company of my dog, and, while on the trail, happening upon beaver, or falling under the diligent gaze of a good number of cows, needs to speak aloud to keep that priceless gift of speech alive. What language do you think I use, when I speak alone, that is, with my dog, the beaver, the cows, and my Saints? Mostly French. Sometimes Romanian, when the matter is grave beyond redemption, and the skies really gray. But there will be only a few, well-weighed words in that language.

French because I miss speaking and hearing French, it is a fact. Yet I figure, once in the world beyond, languages must loose their specificity and become interchangeable. They must sound like Fredo Viola’s Sad Song. Everybody should understand everybody else without effort, regardless of the language they speak, and what is left of that old specificity is the affective color of that language in tatters still used. Nowadays, because I paint, and because every single painting is a submission to my first teacher of the art, my own French Madame, I take the liberty to speak French to my Saints while promising to strengthen my resolve. They certainly get the color of my language, which is the color of affection, foolish knowledge, bonheur and still time at once.

Of course I did not tell Grace this story quite in so many words. To her, for now, I said the choice of language and the manner of speech had to do with whom one spoke to, what one had just read, or who had visited her in her dreams. Although quite often nowadays, the first thing I ask Colin when we wake up in the morning is:

“Cit e ceasul?”

September 11, Physiotherapy

Angela writes:

I have a new physiotherapist. My old one, the one who had cured my broken ankle and tried to help my broken back, has left for the more alluring skies of BC. I loved her because she had been a gymnast in her youth. All these years later, and she is about my age, her body the bearer of the grace branded by that superwoman-superchild sport.

After her departure I thought I would not go back to the town of Campbellford. I would not continue my therapy there. I did not want this separation to weigh upon the already exhausting balance of good byes I carry around. Yet as soon as the month of September sent everybody back to work, I felt I’d better take up again at least this one fragile routine and pretend I was going back to some sort of work myself.

The new physiotherapist looks nothing like the job would presuppose. On the other hand, her name is Kathy. There have been so many Kathy and Catherine in my life. Some are still with me, some are not, and some are tenuously in-between. I decided I should give this Kathy a chance if only in the name, the melancholy name of those older associations.

She turned out to be more interested in the workings of my fingers than of my arms. I am in therapy because my arms have been weakened by the tumor. My fingers have been even more affected, of course. That is why I have not written anything since last October, when I did a paper, my last paper, for my friend Calin. But until now, knowing the damage to the fingers to be irreversible, therapy has only been concerned with strengthening my arms. And some progress occurred.

Nevertheless, the new Kathy came up with a new idea, which I confess took me by surprise. That I should work on my fingers.

She is telling me to pull a facecloth between my two weakest fingers, the index and the thumb, held tight; or to endlessly clip laundry pins on a rod; or, better yet, to sit in front of the computer and practice typing, for a few minutes every day.
I look at her in disbelief. I find typing difficult. This is why, last year, once out of the hospital, I got an iPad. In order to write on an iPad you only need to use one finger or two.

That is precisely why, she comes back, you should use the computer keyboard, and just type away, numbers, random phrases as they come to your mind, whatever you hear, if you do not know what to.

A bit frazzled, I tell her that I know what to type; I pretend that is not my problem; it used to be my job. You know. I used to write, to put it simply.

She does not seem to see the relevance of that. A relatively unimportant detail under the present circumstances. And continues by encouraging me to do my emails on the computer keyboard. Yes, there’s a good idea.

I say thank you, not without a sort of dazed sincerity, and leave with the resolve, albeit bemused, to “practice keyboard” for a few minutes every day.

I’ll ask Colin to make some room for me in his blog. Maybe I can write a few words now and then, in order to strengthen my fingers, and with them all the muscles which, all over my back, contribute to the task of writing.

September 11, In the Woods

Today I walked off the trail and into the woods.  Perhaps I had hoped to get lost.  In fact I had hoped to calm down.   There, where things were most green, dark, and wet, and I stood most still, my heart still ached.

The lung specialist had little to say.  He thumped the bottom of his fists over Angela's collar bones and sternum.  He listened to her lungs.  He said he had seen the CT image in question.  He tapped the surface of his iphone entering pertinent variables into an app.  He said that based on Angela's age, and relatively favorable smoking history, the lesion in Angela's right lung has a 42% chance of being malignant.  He acknowledged that Angela's recent history of both cancer and radiation treatment do not figure into this calculation.  He said that his iphone app is proven to be more accurate than a panel of experts so it would be folly for him to speculate on more than the few variables required.   He told us that myeloma does 't usually show up in the lung, so if this is malignant it is likely something else.  He is sending Angela for a CT guided fine needle aspirate biopsy of the lesion.  He has also requested a PET scan for which we will have to go to Ottawa.  This scan will also help differentiate the lesion in her skull.  Both of these investigations will take at least a few of weeks.  Reluctantly, we are waiting.

beavers' pond

Angela sleeps restlessly.  Her appetite is poor.

I am enraged by the very system of which I am a part. These tests should be done already.  This man, preferably, would have gazed into a crystal ball, or read Angela's palm.  I'd prefer a panel of fools at this point to iphone medicine.  The fools, though, are hiding behind their machines.  I have left a number of messages on various phones at the Kingston Cancer Center yesterday.  It seems to me these phones are never answered directly.  I would like some solid dates, and of course I'd like them sooner than later.

The colors around us are changing quickly.  Acorns have been falling on our roof.  Angela, mostly patient, is capturing the changes in photos.  Our morning routines, complete with coffee and foamed milk, remain the same, as does our resolve.  We will keep you posted. 

September 3, Under a Blazing Sky

“I have such a good life.  That’s why I’m crying.  Who would want to give up such a good life?”

There was one day of cloud recently in what has otherwise been glorious weather.  Although we welcomed a little bit of rain, it was on this cloudy day that we received the results of Angela’s most recent scans: “a 2.5 cm lesion in the apex of the right lung suspicious for neoplasm.”  The radiologist recommends a biopsy of this.  She also recommends further investigation of “a lesion potential for myeloma at the vertex of the cranium.” 

Now we are waiting.  We are back to the Cancer Center in Kingston at the end of this week, this time to meet with a lung specialist. 

In the meantime we try not to think. 

Angela paints.  She is working on her largest canvass to date.  Along the very bottom she has painted a few boats tied to a pier.  Originally two of the boats were named “RESCUE,” and above them was a blue sky. 

Enraged, we looked at this image stupidly. 

“I do not need to be rescued,” our bear finally said. 

Now the sky is emblazoned, painted and repainted with variations of red, yellow, green, grey, blue.  The boats too are bolder.  Once named “rescue,” they are now called “COURAGE.”  

When I am not at work I have taken on dumb tasks.  We lost our internet connection recently so I have spent evenings booting and rebooting the modem.  I have jumped through hoops for technicians in India and New Brunswick who take me through various sequences of plugging in and out the modem, router, computer and so on.  The satellite people tell me it’s the router, the router people tell me it’s the modem.  They cannot know what anger I am displacing onto this.  Foolishly, while Angela slept the other day, I drove to Belleville to buy a new router knowing it wouldn’t work.  Finally, I am promised a visit by a technician.  Finally, like Angela, I am also finding courage.

We do not want to jump to conclusions.  We talk casually in the mornings about where we might go for Christmas.  We contemplate the potential for scar tissue and tell ourselves that these lesions may not be what they appear.   Angela reassures us that she feels strong.  Against the CT and x-ray images we have her blazing sky.

I blame the timing of this, in part, on Angela’s lifelong submission to the academic calendar.  We hoped to avoid a return to work this September, but in this, my friends, we know that we are not alone.  We are grateful for the continued words of encouragement that we still receive.  Let us not waste our time on dumb tasks.  Let us not paint things only as they appear.  Let us all return to work however we must, and let us all…be in touch.

August 6, Patio

Saint George and the dragon still clash above our fireplace.  Even in battle the knight's face, and the postures of both combatants, are prayerful and calm.  Like Rocky, though, Angela and I are now spending much less time at the hearth, and more time in the sun.

We visited the radiation oncologist last week.  He tells us that there has been no change on the most recent MRI compared to the last.  This, of course, is very good.  He has ordered a repeat skeletal survey, xrays of the rest of her bones, to be sure the cancer has not taken up elsewhere.  Angela, smiling, tells him not to worry.  She says, for the moment at least, she is feeling better.

It is hard to know if our bear's symptoms have improved.  Her determination, though, has continued.  Still she is up repeatedly in the night to "reposition."  When she is lying down, unless her arms are stretched out straight, they quickly grow numb.  When she drives to town she is sure to nap beforehand lest she fall asleep at the wheel.  There is, still, so much care required for simple tasks.  Irrespective of her persistent symptoms, though, our bear, clearly, is getting stronger.  She is driving herself to town now a few times per week.  She is walking Rocky down the highway a little further each day.  Wherever she goes, however far, she seems now to come back with photos.  She takes her iphone everywhere and pays close attention to everything.  She has captured some remarkable cloud formations, and at least one oddly beautiful insect.

For Angela's birthday yesterday we made a trip to Ottawa to visit the Van Gogh exhibition.  He too was crazy about tree trunks, insects, and clouds.

charity and good homes for old books

We boxed up most of Angela's library recently.  Still she cannot write without tingling and numbness.  She cannot read without sedation.  She cannot do either without a certain amount of grief.  For the moment, at least, we need some space on our shelves.  Today, we are rearranging our furniture.  We have the happy feeling that there remains plenty of space for new things.

We have started, it seems, with canvases. Angela continues to paint.  After some self portraits she has painted a couple of me.  Somehow in the paintings I am restful and calm.  In one I am asleep.  A pillow is under my head.  My eyes are shut.  In another I am slouched in a chair.  Angela, with her painting, is wishing me restful dreams.  It is true that the dragon had tired me out.  In recent months, though, as if to restrict my life as much as Angela's, I have been taking on many more responsibilities in my work.  My workdays are long.  In this way Angela and I retain the same pace.  I am grateful when I am away for the photos she texts to me of the clouds, and of Rocky's shadow on the grass.

We celebrated Angela's birthday last night with some wine.  Happily a glass of wine has become palatable again.  The sun has been beating down heavily on everything this summer.  Happily it seems to have slowed everything down.  We moved from the fireplace to the deck.  Forgetting the dragon for the moment we are toasting Angela's health.  Remembering Saint George we are staying prayerful and calm.

We know it has been a long time since I have written on this blog.  I do not have the strength of Van Gogh, whose paintings I now love, nor of a polar bear, or of Saint George, but I am grateful for our friends, and, ultimately, I will try...to keep you posted.

April 16, Boston

African sculpture at the Boston Museum

angela's take on it

Angela and I returned yesterday from a trip to Boston.  The snow has long since melted from our trail.  The grass in the meadow has become green again.  The leaves on the Poplars are once again rustling in the wind.  Ready or not our bear has been trying to respond to the call of spring.

The warmer temperatures and the early return of so many birds have been helpful, but Angela has been inspired as well by the most recent visits to her doctors.  The radiation oncologist was very enthusiastic about the destruction caused by his beams.  He printed before and after MRI images of Angela's spine and tumour.  Happily, he circled pertinent areas in red ink to add emphasis as he spoke.  Clearly he was impressed by the changes.  True, there remains a mass, maybe a few, but we cannot know as yet what these masses are doing.  If they are still growing the change will not be visible on MRI for several weeks.  This doctor, a true general, will apparently be surprised if the enemy survives such a direct hit by his weapon.  He will nevertheless watch closely.  We will be back for another MRI in June.  In the meantime our medical oncologist is unexcited.  He is looking in a completely different direction anyway for what he expects, at some point, will be the next assault.  Without meeting us he sent his resident in at our last appointment to tell us that Angela's blood work is basically unchanged since our previous visit.  I suppose we will be back for repeat blood work in a few months.   In the meantime I am very proud of my great bear.  Contrary to the medical oncologist's expectations, she has surely levelled deadly blows to the mischiefous dragon!

Somehow a trip seemed necessary.  Should we not be celebrating?  Somehow it seemed right to escape.    We drove to Boston.  Angela could not contemplate being on a plane as yet so we picked a place we could drive to.  We had a few days in a nice hotel.  We had a couple of long walks.  We met with our good friends Catherine, Terry, and Lou who were also there, conveniently, "on business."  We had, once again, and like old times, great laughs.  We did, certainly, a lot more than we might have done only a few weeks ago.  We are prepared to call this progress.  Great progress!

It is understood, of course, that this trip was not altogether easy.  It is understood that there is still pain suffered.  Angela, today, has done very little.  Her arms, unfortunately, are as painful and numb today as ever.  The medications, in a different way, are also numbing.  Victory, to be sure, is relative.

We did not know before we arrived to the city that the Boston Marathon was scheduled for today. On the morning that we left Boston our waiter at breakfast asked Angela if she was in town to run the race.  Although he seemed to immediately understand that this was not likely, he could not take back the question.  Angela was delighted.  "Yes," she said.  "Yes, I am here for the marathon."  She smiled brilliantly and we all had a good laugh.

Spring happily and cruelly has surely arrived.  Our bear, compelled, wills to go further still.  Evidently there will not be progress without pain.   The fight is now a marathon.  We are pacing ourselves.  In time, my friends, we will be in touch.

March 18: Forest Trail

Angela and I are just back from a walk in the woods.  Inspired by such a warm and beautiful day so early in the year we went further than I expected.  Soon after leaving we hung our sweaters and jackets on tree branches and continued in only t-shirts.  However slowly, we walked very triumphantly on the soaked trail.  Still how curious to find, now after many days of warm weather and much rain, patches of ice and snow persisting under our feet.

Angela's most recent MRI results are difficult to interpret.  Apprehensively we visited the neurosurgeon on Thursday to discuss the results.  It is hard to know whether it is a quirk of his personality, or the circumstance itself, that compels this gentleman to shrug his shoulders so often.  He brought the images up on the computer screen and compared the previous MRI to the most recent.  He showed us the space where the body of the first thoracic vertebra should be, and how there is now neither a bone nor a tumour there.  He showed us how the remaining bones and fragments "caved in," more or less, in a stable pattern.  By reference to some obvious kinks in the line of the remaining vertebrae, he reassured himself of the legitimacy of Angela's ongoing complaints of back pain.  "Yes," he said, "one can imagine at least a few nerve roots being squeezed along there."  Proudly, though, he demonstrated how the spinal cord itself is no longer pinched by a tumour.   Hesitatingly, but finally, he showed us a remaining mass, "perhaps 6 or 8 cubic centimetres in volume lateral to the cord, on the left."  "Yes," he said, "that's quite consistent with the numbness you describe in your left hand."

It was about this mass, of course, I felt we should speak.  Is it growing?  Might it still be shrinking?  Does it require further treatment?  To these questions, though, our proud and humble neurosurgeon, speechless, repeatedly shrugged his shoulders.   What he did know with certainty was that surgery, still, was ill advised.  It is simply not likely that with surgery he could get all of the tumour out.  Any surgery, furthermore, is likely to result in more pain and dysfunction rather than less.  "Best not to touch it," he said, and with this in mind he also counselled against physiotherapy for the time being.  "We still don't know if things will get better or worse on their own," he said, "better to watch and wait."

Our neurosurgeon wants to see Angela again in 3 months.  He is managing the spinal column.  He said it was for the oncologists to manage the tumour at this point.  In the meantime, remembering that Angela was "a professor of some type," and as though not to be completely useless, he wondered if hiring a transcriptionist would be helpful.

And so we turn to the oncologists.  Apprehensively, again, we make our next visit to Kingston tomorrow to see the radiation oncologist.

With signs of Spring our bear is coming out of hibernation.  It is no small thing that we managed a walk in the woods today.  It does not matter how slowly and cautiously we walked.  On Friday we managed a trip to the dentist in Toronto.  It does not matter how tiring it was.  Angela is convinced that she can drive safely at this point, if only a short distance.  Although it remains to be seen if she can make it to anywhere meaningful before her hands give out, we will soon give it a try.  She grows tired of isolation too.  Although she wonders how entertaining she can be for guests, with Spring, she hopes she will have more visits.  Winter, it seems, was for stones and orchids, spring, we hope, will be for visits with more friends.

We choose to find solace in the ice and snow on our forest trail.  Though persisting, it is surely melting.  We take hope, for the time being, in the idea that the tumour too might still be melting.  We will, my friends, find out soon enough.   Melting snow, so slow, can, it proves, be painful to chronicle.  We will, nevertheless, do our best.  We will, in continued gratitude, be in touch.