Recently I found myself sitting with a friend at Weill - Cornell, the hospital that houses my oncologist and his staff. This time I was there not for myself but for my friend: She was about to be diagnosed with chronic leukemia.
G- d knows we saw a lot during the four hours we spent in the waiting room, but I am going to tell you about one person in particular. We will call this person merely - Person.
Person walked into the waiting area about halfway through our stay. Person wore dark glasses, so the eyes could not be seen, but the face was delicate, quite pretty and framed by simple silver hoop earrings. The clothing struck me as rather cavalier for someone whose fate it was to join the rest of us on the third floor of Weill-Cornell: jaunty black gauzy shirt with three unclosed buttons at the top; sleeves about three-fourths of the way down the arms; standard jeans and the daintiest ballet slippers I have ever seen.
How wonderful, I thought to myself, to be so in-control of one's self and one's surroundings and simultaneously to carry inside the knowledge of one' s cancer! My thoughts continued: If only I could be so liberated from psychological pain - so free of despair ! - instead of being the miserable kvetch that never forgets for one second that she is walking this earth only by the greatest mercy of the L-rd above.
I continued to watch Person waiting for blood tests: I saw no anxiety; no apprehension; only self-assured ease and the prettiest, perkiest face in the room.
Then something happened: Person's hands started moving a bit, and I noticed - and I noticed - they were a pair of MAN HANDS, straight from an old Seinfeld episode. But this story has a different twist: It now became clearer by the second that Person was on the third floor (oncology, urology, hematology) because a sex change operation had recently been performed. On her. On him. Qui sait?
I waited for the receptionist to tell Person it was time to see the doctor, but she merely called out the name "Cooper;" no Mr., Mrs., Ms. or anything.
And then suddenly my envy became pity.
What of this person's mother? father? wife, perhaps? Children?
What if my own cherished son had come to me only to declare that he could no longer live in a man's body? What would I have done then?
Soon the totally inappropriate questions came to mind: Does Person have cancer? Or does she visit Suite B/Urology because of new excretory organs? There seemed to be a substantial mound of bosom on Person's chest: cancer? new boobs? Who knows?
I could not wait to share my story. I told myself this was not really gossip; it was only a natural need to unburden disturbing thoughts. I soon learned that I am about the only one with these disturbing thoughts: the rest of the world (including Iowa, of all places) has gone soft on difficult sexual matters. (Or should I say that hardly anyone cares anymore? Except me.)
This happened some weeks ago. I am waiting for my feelings to morph into guilt, the emotion that eventually replaces every single feeling I have ever had.
This time, however, it would be appropriate and welcome....
Post Script (Next Day)
I have been reminded (again) very ardently, very vociferously (again) that Hitler killed "odd" people like gays, gypsies, the crippled and JEWS. (Members of some of these categories probably did not even merit torture - just death.) Of course G-d wants us all to remain as we have been made, but, as a transgender individual asked Oprah, "How would you feel if you had a penis?" The resulting look on her face said it all.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Fine Point, by John Updike
Why go to Sunday school, though surlily,
and not believe a bit of what was taught?
The desert shepherds in their scratchy robes
undoubtedly existed, and Israel's defeats -
the Temple in its sacredness destroyed
by Babylon and Rome. Yet Jews kept faith
and passed the prayers, the crabbed rites,
from table to table as Christians mocked.
We mocked, but took. The timbrel creed of praise
gives spirit to to the daily; blood tinges lips.
The tongue reposes in papyrus pleas,
saying, Surely - magnificent, that "surely" -
goodness and mercy shall follow me all
the days of my life, my life, forever.
and not believe a bit of what was taught?
The desert shepherds in their scratchy robes
undoubtedly existed, and Israel's defeats -
the Temple in its sacredness destroyed
by Babylon and Rome. Yet Jews kept faith
and passed the prayers, the crabbed rites,
from table to table as Christians mocked.
We mocked, but took. The timbrel creed of praise
gives spirit to to the daily; blood tinges lips.
The tongue reposes in papyrus pleas,
saying, Surely - magnificent, that "surely" -
goodness and mercy shall follow me all
the days of my life, my life, forever.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
poem, for J:
To lose you, the fine-tuned boy
I used to know
would be like the French losing
the solid gold inch
that is kept for all time
as the standard measure,
the very basis of all
normalcy, regularity.
To lose you, my strong scion,
would be like losing
the stuff of me that
still remains: uterus,
right ovary, heart, breasts
all filled with mother's
love.
To lose you, proud elk,
straight and true as any
of G-d's trees,
would be like losing
a pulse, a steady
metronome
beating continually
the rhythms
of whatever life
is left.
To lose you - dear Lord - to lose him
would be to press Your fingers
upon my lids forever.
em
I used to know
would be like the French losing
the solid gold inch
that is kept for all time
as the standard measure,
the very basis of all
normalcy, regularity.
To lose you, my strong scion,
would be like losing
the stuff of me that
still remains: uterus,
right ovary, heart, breasts
all filled with mother's
love.
To lose you, proud elk,
straight and true as any
of G-d's trees,
would be like losing
a pulse, a steady
metronome
beating continually
the rhythms
of whatever life
is left.
To lose you - dear Lord - to lose him
would be to press Your fingers
upon my lids forever.
em
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Ecce Cur Menum
Heart:
You would expect it to be mercurial:
when chopped into little pieces,
each bit should attract another
until the heart resumes
its proper size and shape.
It does not.
It breaks up into
salt and potassium
and who knows what else
uselessly elemental.
Perhaps even carbon:
I think I have found
my carbon footprint
stamped into my heart,
like clogs of puzzle waiting
to be reassembled.
I have not been good:
pieces of clumpy soil
deprived of its oxygen
have stopped up my heart:
grass uprooted,
flowers black with age.
How easy as a child
to break a thermometer
and let the mercury
swim together!
No more.
Only shards of glass-
and muddy ash.
em
You would expect it to be mercurial:
when chopped into little pieces,
each bit should attract another
until the heart resumes
its proper size and shape.
It does not.
It breaks up into
salt and potassium
and who knows what else
uselessly elemental.
Perhaps even carbon:
I think I have found
my carbon footprint
stamped into my heart,
like clogs of puzzle waiting
to be reassembled.
I have not been good:
pieces of clumpy soil
deprived of its oxygen
have stopped up my heart:
grass uprooted,
flowers black with age.
How easy as a child
to break a thermometer
and let the mercury
swim together!
No more.
Only shards of glass-
and muddy ash.
em
Friday, September 26, 2008
Purification
G-d gives us this period of time before Yom Kippur to purify our selves in order to be worthy of standing in front of Him and asking forgiveness.This time should be used well; it is another one of His precious gifts.
I have been praying a lot for ridding myself of desire, that succulent snaky thing that crawls all over your innards and makes you stop short some times because your breath has simply been taken away. (I think I can begin to understand Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair" a bit better now. "G-d, save us from this bomb falling over our home, and I will give up my desire forever.")
Giving up desire is not easy, especially when it comes at this late hour of life. The desire itself reminds me of being young and of having functional bodily parts that etiologically and correctly used to stir rather frequently for the purpose of reproduction. Now there is no purpose at all: just needless lust that creeps into the bedroom to mock me and hovers like the ghost that it is over my empty, lonely body.
Giving up desire is particularly difficult when the desire is for the wrong person: a gonnif, a thief, who has eaten away at me like the cancer that once destroyed some of my bodily parts. Giving up desire becomes especially hard precisely because it is so forbidden and reminiscent of the two year-old girl who had to choose between her seductive daddy and the stern truth of her mother's realities.
So I use this time to rid myself of desire, but the nighttime dreams still steal into my bedroom and the same old snake sneaks through the keyhole.
I pray for purification so that I might stand before the L-rd and pray for forgiveness.
I have been praying a lot for ridding myself of desire, that succulent snaky thing that crawls all over your innards and makes you stop short some times because your breath has simply been taken away. (I think I can begin to understand Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair" a bit better now. "G-d, save us from this bomb falling over our home, and I will give up my desire forever.")
Giving up desire is not easy, especially when it comes at this late hour of life. The desire itself reminds me of being young and of having functional bodily parts that etiologically and correctly used to stir rather frequently for the purpose of reproduction. Now there is no purpose at all: just needless lust that creeps into the bedroom to mock me and hovers like the ghost that it is over my empty, lonely body.
Giving up desire is particularly difficult when the desire is for the wrong person: a gonnif, a thief, who has eaten away at me like the cancer that once destroyed some of my bodily parts. Giving up desire becomes especially hard precisely because it is so forbidden and reminiscent of the two year-old girl who had to choose between her seductive daddy and the stern truth of her mother's realities.
So I use this time to rid myself of desire, but the nighttime dreams still steal into my bedroom and the same old snake sneaks through the keyhole.
I pray for purification so that I might stand before the L-rd and pray for forgiveness.
Monday, September 1, 2008
But Will the Levees Hold? - 1 Sept.2008
Oh heart:
Let's you and I imagine inside me
ten trillion drops of blood trying to push through
barriers like those barely built in New Orleans,
the city of sin that belongs in
the Old Testament, awaiting flood
after flood, until nothing remains
but the little boy who says, "My mama's dead;
someone pushed her in the water."
Heart, we have been pushed into water, too.
What if this time the crude levees clearly break
and the droplets rush in to become Red Seas
of hate, anger, despair, and, worst of all, the chance
of no more love in this very small country
we call my soul? Oh, Lord, spare my son
the sight of seeing his mother drown
in the detritus of her own overgrown cells;
Heart, let us hold on to what we know
of life and its sustenance and of prayer.
e.m.
Let's you and I imagine inside me
ten trillion drops of blood trying to push through
barriers like those barely built in New Orleans,
the city of sin that belongs in
the Old Testament, awaiting flood
after flood, until nothing remains
but the little boy who says, "My mama's dead;
someone pushed her in the water."
Heart, we have been pushed into water, too.
What if this time the crude levees clearly break
and the droplets rush in to become Red Seas
of hate, anger, despair, and, worst of all, the chance
of no more love in this very small country
we call my soul? Oh, Lord, spare my son
the sight of seeing his mother drown
in the detritus of her own overgrown cells;
Heart, let us hold on to what we know
of life and its sustenance and of prayer.
e.m.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
for Greg, Dallas, TX., 3/5/84
Missions outside this house acquaint us with death:
You return to your historic pines
that bend and cross
and tangle a web
of Reynoldsian green.
Along the dirt roads, among the cones,
small animals lie dead,
and snakes that shed skins from year to year
remind you that, in another life,
you are the one who came from there.
And I, one thousand miles north,
search the sands for memories.
Footprints beached over; mine that year -
his, hers, theirs - everywhere.
The rot that comes to shore
might be dead, half-dead or alive:
jellyfish that sting when you touch;
mussels inside shells; a drop of seawater
under the glass, swimming
with creaturely life.
The skulls of old women amaze us both.
The wrinkled forehead skin
shrunken so thin
as to allow faint bands of light
to penetrate the bone enclosed within.
We resist the basic urge to bend and kiss
in search of softer body flesh.
Instead, we carry our need back to this house
where the dying and dead
inhabit museums
inside our heads.
ellen moser
You return to your historic pines
that bend and cross
and tangle a web
of Reynoldsian green.
Along the dirt roads, among the cones,
small animals lie dead,
and snakes that shed skins from year to year
remind you that, in another life,
you are the one who came from there.
And I, one thousand miles north,
search the sands for memories.
Footprints beached over; mine that year -
his, hers, theirs - everywhere.
The rot that comes to shore
might be dead, half-dead or alive:
jellyfish that sting when you touch;
mussels inside shells; a drop of seawater
under the glass, swimming
with creaturely life.
The skulls of old women amaze us both.
The wrinkled forehead skin
shrunken so thin
as to allow faint bands of light
to penetrate the bone enclosed within.
We resist the basic urge to bend and kiss
in search of softer body flesh.
Instead, we carry our need back to this house
where the dying and dead
inhabit museums
inside our heads.
ellen moser
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
from CARING TODAY magazine
"Anger is a prevalent reaction to being a caregiver, but few confess to it.... She [Bess] confides that she ended up enraged with her mother. 'With all my running for her, she never asked if this was too much for me. She just complained that I wasn't giving her enough attention.'"
"Still, guilt is a near-inescapable fallout. 'It's universal,' reports Dr. Tessina. 'You feel responsible for your parent's problems and guilty for not being able to do anything about them.'"
-by Anne Hosansky
"Still, guilt is a near-inescapable fallout. 'It's universal,' reports Dr. Tessina. 'You feel responsible for your parent's problems and guilty for not being able to do anything about them.'"
-by Anne Hosansky
Monday, June 30, 2008
Earthy Smell, for My Children
You have to watch the pansies. Give them
too much water, and they will rebel.
Lovely young faces turn puckered and old;
green stems turn yellow and uproot at a touch.
How much is too much? A sudden torrential
rain, of course, is disaster, and
even the well-meaning extra squirt of hose
by a friendly caretaker bloats the bowl
in which incredible beauty soon will fade.
So I take the pansies into my hall
before a rain, along with the delicate pinks
that have, to my knowledge, no name. They
stay overnight, sometimes, and then the
vestibule takes on the earthy smell
of out-of-doors, a smell that can be easily
confused with mildew and mold. Actually
it is the sign of salvation in progress,
for the next day the pots will be returned
to their spots in the sun.... It is always
easy to find analogy: our beau-
tiful faces that wrinkle with pride,
which we just cannot relinquish in the
light of day. So we take ourselves inside,
sleep perhaps a little too much and allow
our minds to return us to the people we are.
Love heals: the piercing of hearts that taints
the sunlight and turns it into dotted yolk
is the stuff of slime. So now it is time
to move back outside and learn to weather
with mercy and grace and lack of shame
what next time will be just a bit of rain.
ellen moser
too much water, and they will rebel.
Lovely young faces turn puckered and old;
green stems turn yellow and uproot at a touch.
How much is too much? A sudden torrential
rain, of course, is disaster, and
even the well-meaning extra squirt of hose
by a friendly caretaker bloats the bowl
in which incredible beauty soon will fade.
So I take the pansies into my hall
before a rain, along with the delicate pinks
that have, to my knowledge, no name. They
stay overnight, sometimes, and then the
vestibule takes on the earthy smell
of out-of-doors, a smell that can be easily
confused with mildew and mold. Actually
it is the sign of salvation in progress,
for the next day the pots will be returned
to their spots in the sun.... It is always
easy to find analogy: our beau-
tiful faces that wrinkle with pride,
which we just cannot relinquish in the
light of day. So we take ourselves inside,
sleep perhaps a little too much and allow
our minds to return us to the people we are.
Love heals: the piercing of hearts that taints
the sunlight and turns it into dotted yolk
is the stuff of slime. So now it is time
to move back outside and learn to weather
with mercy and grace and lack of shame
what next time will be just a bit of rain.
ellen moser
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Graduation(s) at Nefesh
June 2005: Greg drops me off on Coney Island Avenue, not far from the Tree of Life Synagogue. I know without giving it any thought that he will pick me up at the same gas station when graduation is over. Of course, he does. I feel married and cared about, if only for transportation purposes.
June 2006: Graduation falls on Father's Day, and Jeff accompanies me. In my heart I am hoping that the uplifting ceremony and emphasis on Hashem will help him forget a bit that this is his first Father's Day without his Dad. Before he goes, he calls his father; there are a few tears, which I am sure he prefers I had not seen. The slide show at graduation is able to be shown because Jeff fixes the machine just on time. I am very proud.
June 2007: I am the proudest person in the synagogue! I have survived a craniotomy, a nephrectomy and 30 sessions of radiation! Sitting with me are my most favorite people in the world: Jeff, Sheryl and Sherry. Sheryl remarks that she will have to cover her head when she attends next year's graduation.
June 2008: I am alone and bereft this year. As part of the ceremony, one girl praises all the teachers in a very uplifting way. When she gets to my name, she thanks me for teaching her class "to appreciate everything." (The snap of recognition comes easily; I think to myself: This is how I raised Fred and Jeff.) Mrs. Newhouse comments that the name Esther means"hidden, shy, unknown, a queen; the name Yehuda," she gratuitously mentions, means, "thank you, Hashem, for giving me this wonderful child."
Be well, Yehuda.
e.m.
June 2006: Graduation falls on Father's Day, and Jeff accompanies me. In my heart I am hoping that the uplifting ceremony and emphasis on Hashem will help him forget a bit that this is his first Father's Day without his Dad. Before he goes, he calls his father; there are a few tears, which I am sure he prefers I had not seen. The slide show at graduation is able to be shown because Jeff fixes the machine just on time. I am very proud.
June 2007: I am the proudest person in the synagogue! I have survived a craniotomy, a nephrectomy and 30 sessions of radiation! Sitting with me are my most favorite people in the world: Jeff, Sheryl and Sherry. Sheryl remarks that she will have to cover her head when she attends next year's graduation.
June 2008: I am alone and bereft this year. As part of the ceremony, one girl praises all the teachers in a very uplifting way. When she gets to my name, she thanks me for teaching her class "to appreciate everything." (The snap of recognition comes easily; I think to myself: This is how I raised Fred and Jeff.) Mrs. Newhouse comments that the name Esther means"hidden, shy, unknown, a queen; the name Yehuda," she gratuitously mentions, means, "thank you, Hashem, for giving me this wonderful child."
Be well, Yehuda.
e.m.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)