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.