Accident

Resting Lion by Rembrandt

October has been jam packed with non-stop action. We moved from Hawaii to Minnesota. We celebrated our sixth year of marriage. We had a family reunion with all Eric's clan. I started an internship at a bridal magazine and landed a job at a school here in Minneapolis. Our new life was busy, but unpacking nicely. 

Then, on Wednesday, E's Dad had a bicycle accident that put him in intensive care. He had brain surgery around 4:30 p.m. to remove blood and bruising from his brain. The surgeon left part of the skull out so that his brain would have room to swell without a buildup of pressure in his brain. 

Since the surgery, he has been in a medically induced coma to help him keep still and rest. His bed is a rat's nest of tubes and wires. His face and eyes are bruised and swollen almost beyond recognition. The surgeon's incision on his head is a slithering rail road track of staples across his puckered and yellow skin. 

I can't say that I am shocked by what has happened. I thought I felt hopeful and optimistic at first, but now, I am not so sure. Recovery from brain injury is measured in months and years, not weeks. 

I watch him lying there, listening to the hum of the machines, and the clicks of the respirator and the beeping of the monitor, and I can't help but marvel at our glorious bodies, and how much they do on their own when they are healthy. I look at all these tubes snaking their way around his frail body, and they all have a purpose: they do the work the body normally does without assistance.

The most complicated apparatus helps him breathe. Two giant accordion tubes, one blue, one white, meet in a y at his chest and narrow into one blue tube forced down his throat and make their way to an oxygen tank. Another tube drains blood from the injury these tubes made in the back of his throat. It is clear and I can see that it is full of blood and mucus and air bubbles. One silvery white tube snakes down from a bag on a metal hanger above his head and into his nose, feeding him formula as if he were a tiny baby in a terrible science fiction movie. Another tube is connected to a vein in his arm, and this one supplies saline solution the doctors prescribed to help limit the swelling in his brain and organs. Yet another tube gives him medication to keep him sedated and still, because brain trauma often causes confusion and agitation in patients. Another tube pulls fluids out of his stomach and fills a series of quart sized canisters behind him with foul looking bubbling brown bile. Soft, but heartbreaking restraints bind his wrists to the bed so that he can't try to remove the bewildering jumble of tubes inserted straight into his mouth. Even more tubes are snaking out from underneath his hospital gown, hidden from view. How they are connected, I can only guess. 

I sit there beside him and marvel at how my body is executing all these functions for me without any help at all. My lungs are filling and emptying regularly, by themselves. My stomach is digesting food and moving it through my body to give me strength and energy. The waste is being collected and controlled. All without my asking anything of it, my body does these tasks. I never have to consider it. 

Here at the hospital, they can keep Dad alive, but look at the measures they must go to. Look at all the equipment they need, all the needles and tubes and beeping machines. During weekday mornings a team gathers in the ICU to make the rounds with each of the patients here. They give updates and discuss their various duties to collaborate and avoid mix ups. On that first day, when I saw all of them gathered outside of his door, I felt so humbled by the preciousness of life. There were so many of them, all there to help save him. There was the brain surgeon, the trauma doctor, the pharmacist, the breathing therapist, the nurses, the social worker, and others whose jobs I don't even understand. All these people who don't even know Dad, they don't know anything about him at all, but they know that his life is precious and they have gathered around to rescue him from the darkness that wants to swallow him up. 

I have been so angry with him, since before this accident even happened. I was so angry about his lack of dignity, his lack of will to pull himself together and face the problems that he had created by ignoring problems for so many years. I still am angry about all of that. But seeing him in this bed, and knowing that he is alive, I know beyond a doubt that I don't want him to die. I want him alive, I want to see him hold my little babies some day, I want to hear him tell his stories about growing up in Millard, Nebraska. I want to watch him jut out his chin in that pompous and silly way as he and E and I sit around the patio table discussing the universe, travel, the point of art, the meaning of life. I had no idea of the depth of my love until now. I was so blind, I thought a few bad choices could turn it all sour. But what is any of that compared with his one wild and precious life? His life? What is worth more than that? 

Book Report: Women, Food & God by Geneen Roth

The beginning of a New Year feels like the perfect time to write about Women, Food and God, because our culture touts January 1st as the time to dive into yet another punishing diet, take up a grueling work out routine and finally transform yourself into A Skinny Person Who Has It All and Is Blissfully Happy.

Geneen Roth calls this Sisyphean. That rock is doomed to roll back down the hill.

I've just finished reading this book for a second time because I wanted to pass it along to a friend and fellow blogger. The first time, I read the entire thing on a plane ride in a few hours. This time, I took my time and read it slowly, a chapter every other night or so. (The difference between inhaling three pieces of sheet cake and savoring one really good piece of chocolate.)

The premise of Women, Food and God is that many of us are disconnected from our bodies, and therefore from our most direct access to our divinity. This book intends to help women come back into their bodies, respect them, listen to them and stop their incessant battle with food.

No small feat.

What I both love and hate about this approach is that it demands that you address the source of the problem. Getting To The Bottom Of It is hugely attractive in theory. Once and for all. But this isn't about getting in touch with your emotions surrounding food so you can untangle every past hurts or your parents' failings. It's about sensing those emotions so you can see that you have attached them to food, and then move beyond them.

In practice however, I find myself deeply inclined to bolt. I have many tactics for this. My personal favorite is "This doesn't really affect me. My problem with food isn't this bad. I've never eaten an entire cake. I don't have fifty pounds to loose." Comparisons keeps me from meeting my issues at the place where I am, and therefore keep me from dealing with them.

Another favorite is to notice how those issues might be showing up in the life of someone close to me. As I re-read, I noticed the notes I had made in the margin the first time around. They were rife with connections between Mrs. Roth's words and other people in my life. Eek. Another way of avoiding my issues.

Then there are the thousand ways I "bolt" in my day to day. So much of it is habitual and totally unconscious. I wake up in the morning and often one of the first things I do is get sucked down the rabbit hole of the internet. Like Alice, I float there in a nether region, totally disembodied, while hours float by. It's far more compelling for me than television. I saw an article on Arianna Huffington in Vogue the other day that said "She has recognized that the entertainment of our times is self expression." That hit home for me. What else am I spending my time on the internet doing than crafting a facsimile of who I'd like to be? It's a way of adopting an identity without really inhabiting it. But it sure looks good. You can start to understand what seduces people into spending 20 hours a day gaming on World of Warcraft. It's a life within a life- but you can turn it into anything you like effortlessly. And yet, it comes at a great cost to your actual life. The one that is sacred.

I also love to bolt by shopping. There again is an element of fantasy for me. Just yesterday I was in Target checking out the after Christmas SALE (my biggest turn on!) and found myself staring longingly at a golden galvanized bin. The sort you would put drinks in at a party. As I size it up, I imagine the party I'd have- it is suddenly filled with ice and Vueve Clicquot. All my friends are gathered around in tuxedos and sequins, popping corks merrily, glasses brimming with foam. Everyone is laughing. Everyone loves me. We are all living to the fullest. Our life is uproariously good. How much is the tub that will bring me all of this? Six dollars? Why, that's my emotional price point!

I'm perfectly willing to pay six dollars to buy a piece of that fantasy. But it disappears immediately. Instead, I come home with a big clunky galvanized tub that I have to make room for- inciting a frenzy of organizing and de-junking (probably more bolting in that compulsion. I am Virtuous and Good when I fill a bag for the thrift shop. I am Not Attached to Earthly Stuff.) There it sits gathering dust. And even if I do someday have the Champagne Party of my Dreams, it can never match up to the fantasy and afterwards I am left feeling slightly empty and deflated.

Have you noticed that I've left food bolting for last? I suppose it's the most embarrassing and perhaps the one I bring the least awareness to. I'll be cleaning up after dinner, and rather than put the last spoonful of pasta or curry into a Tupperware (or the trash) I'll put it in my mouth. Or after I finish tidying the kitchen, I feel as though I deserve a treat, and I'll pop in a chocolate. Sometimes I feel a little twinge of guilt or disgust, but mostly, I feel nothing about it. Numbness.

I am capable of genuinely savoring food, a real gift from my parents to me. But another thing I've noticed is that I will allow myself to become so ravenously hungry that I am unwilling to take the time to prepare food for myself. I often rely on Eric to cook for me. Or, I will raid the cupboards and pull out something that can be ready Right. This. Second. Chips and Salsa. A sleeve or Oreos. Crackers and Cheese. A bowl of nuts. Cereal. Can of Soup. Instant. Instant. Instant.

So my job is to bring awareness to those moments. Instead of stuffing, I am learning to pause and think. Notice my body. Notice if I am hungry or not. Notice what my body actually wants to eat, not what my mind tells me I want. It may not be easy at first, but luckily the only tool I need is this body I am learning to live in.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it? Can you offer any ideas on how to inhabit and savor this one wild and precious life?