Her Chariot on the Horizon

Tomorrow, Navratri begins: nine nights of celebrating the Goddess. It has always been my favorite of all festivals. Nothing gets my Gujarati blood going like a velvet full moon night, bright with promise of garba, and when the first dhol sounds, my feet fly away from my will. I love going for garba, sought it out wherever the roundel formed and only the dying music would stop my whirling.

Of course, the past couple of years has seen my body giving way to my kidney disease and even though I did not miss any more nights of garba than I absolutely had to, I could not dance a lot. I had to sit on the sidelines, watching people more fit give in to the music. I loved that too. There is no feeling better than being at garba.

This year, however, I will not be able to attend for more than a night or two, at the most. My dialysis needs 8 to 10 hours and if I have to reach work the following morning on time, I have to start my treatments before the garbas begin. I plan to go to the temple earlier in the evening and just bow to the Goddess, tell her that I would miss Her and that I'd be thinking of Her.

I can't stop thinking of Her, actually. All year, I would do enough cardio exercises, just so I could dance the garba. I went through Navratri days as though someone had switched on a light deep within me; I glowed and people thought I was in love.  My name for my daughter is no accident: I named her for the Goddess. There are times when I believe that the Goddess did descend within my daughter, especially when I see her insisting on her rights, fighting for what she thinks is fair. My child loved Navratri too. I would buy the pass to go for the large garba sponsored by IRCC, and loved every minute of it. One year, my child, who was in highschool, gathered her few friends and I bundled them into my car and took them dancing till dinner was served after aarti, after 2am. It remains one of my fondest memories of Navratri.

Tonight, I am working on calming myself: after all, I cannot attend the festivities this year, so I should not feel excited at the prospect. However, I cannot help it. I went through the day today, smelling sugar; I almost bought some incense; I stopped myself from a mental inventory of my chanya choli, the odhni scarves that might need ironing, my favorite earrings and bindis waiting since last year in the drawer. But then, I see the dialysis machine waiting on top of the drawer, patiently waiting for me to remember it, and I have to laugh.

I have had so many wonderful Navratri memories that I do not resent having to sit out a year or so. I wish that my child would find a roundel to whirl in during these magical nights, to unleash the Gujju that lurks in her. I know that she is very far and I can no longer see her whirling with unconscious grace, with her unique steps and dips.

Tomorrow, when I go to the Goddess, I will remember to ask her blessing for my child and grant her a roundel all her own, so that years from now, if her body cannot whirl any more, she remembers this year's magic and it warms her darkening year. 

Three Mahabharat Poems

Once, I had a book contract: six stories that followed perspective of six women characters from Hindu Mythology (Sita, Radha, Shikhandi / Amba, Anasuya, Shakuntala, and Satyavati). This contract was triggered by my story, "I, Sita," which was published with Freedom Fiction Journal. I worked, re-worked, and revised all six stories, tried to meet expectations of editors across oceans. My efforts, however, fell short: the editors dropped my project, claiming that they did not have the editorial support my stories needed. It took me months to acknowledge that my work of over two years has come to naught.

I now have six well-dressed characters, waiting; I watch them sitting around on my desktop, adjusting their clothing, glancing questioningly around, and I wish I could apologize. They no longer have anywhere to go. How do I tell them? These six characters are very strong women: diplomats, queens, warriors, lovers, yogis, all ferocious, two attained apotheosis, one even re-born as a man to exact her revenge. I, their messenger of ill-tidings, would not be allowed to exist in the same room as any of them. Whatever will they say? What will they do to me when they hear? Do I even have language to phrase what I must tell them?

Well-wishers and friends keep asking after the book contract; how far has it gone? When is the book being released? My head hangs even lower at these inquiries. A lot of  people had promised to be the first to buy a book such as the one I was working on. How do I bring them to where my characters await?

I do not resent the work, of course. I'd do it all over again, and gladly. It was a labor of love. I learned a great deal, both about the myths and the way I write. I am not the same. Perhaps that is enough. After all, in the final analysis, I wrote mainly for myself. The one person who truly enjoyed the stories has been me; I wonder at my whining!

Let me remind myself: I do have a few poems published. Here are a couple of poems. They are included in Swaranrekha, an anthology of poets from the Indian Subcontinent. Perhaps these voices will give heart to me and my muted characters.

I.

Gandhari Explains

My sons number in hundreds, like iron fillings

Almost indistinguishable, black and hard like my chosen darkness

The birthing was difficult; I prayed for death and release

Posterity wishes I had died, rather than birth what I did

I don’t, of course. I understand their necessity;

This black age needed them to prick itself with, to corrode from within, rust, disintegrate

This knowledge brings no hope, no comfort, no wisdom, no divine insight

I find the false light intolerable, like a transparent, insincere promise

Of a maybe-paradise-after-life if certain cosmic forces are benign

If I can embody ideal of good-wife, good-mother, good-queen

But these good-women cancel each other out, contradict each other,

Pop and blink each other out of existence when they try to be

I prefer denial, the softness of the blindfold, a chosen lack

To keep the balanced universe on its toes, force some boon,

The heavy price already paid in advance, like a flexible spending account

For I have known of my sons’ nature from the time they were a glint,

A splinter of shining metal, glowing darkly in their blind father’s eyes

Which only see his lot shortened, cheated, overlooked

No deity, demon, being can force me to watch in 3-D Kodak color

The slow destruction of an era dying in my sons’ faults,

Their thousand-and-one trespasses on divine patience

All their juvenile assassination attempts laughed off as boys-being-boys

Their malicious tricks and sneers they thought I was too blind to see, shards in my breast

They were indulged when they should have been slapped silly: an expense to be paid by

This world, the golden city my oldest rules justly, if not wisely

Do you wonder why I chose this blindness now? With a

Brother like mine, Husband like mine, Sons like mine,

Would you have chosen differently?

Yet do not call me cursed! I have that

Which Kunti, even, could not coax of the gods:

My dismissed daughter that you forgot, who did not forget me

Stoic and iron-willed, surviving father, uncles, brothers, cousins, husband

After the bloody apocalypse of eighteen days, I need only her touch to bless

My forfeit of illusory sight. The divine nephew, charioteer of victors and kin-killers knows

She is the kindness the cosmos was forced to surrender to my stubborn blindness.

II.

Ganga, Unable

The light confuses me, twisting colors, weaving hues

I keep squinting, unable to focus on a single dimension

Seeing too many tenses at once, unable to hold moments singly

Unable to dwell on a penumbra to tell if it’s dawn or dusk 

I should never have left my heavenly streams

There is such peace, such uniformity in darkness beyond space

This tellurian world demands I assume a safe domesticity,

Properly befitting my gender, scholarship, ancestry, origin

I try, tried modulating gracefully in sweet tones of wifehood, queen-ship

But these cloths, though silken and pliant like my waters,

Do not fit.

They keep slithering about, like the king’s promises,

Get stuck and break apart, like dark suspicions,

Whisper severe doubts along deserted palace halls,

Remain opaque and unyielding so my fluid self is cloaked

 I sit here, at the window seat, my hands idle

The mynah on the mango tree screeches sweetly as she despoils the fruit

I must leave soon; I see the forbidden question squatting on the sunset

Unspoken as yet, but imminent, inevitable, like you, my newly conceived son 

             I only want to keep you formless within me, my taintless child, spun of waves and swords,

Like this ageless song snatched from the tenuous plundering bird;

You don’t agree and insistence on proper whittling distresses me

I am relieved when the bird flies off to desecrate other unripe fruit 

A lucid glance at my husband shocks as I rise in greeting and recognition:

For when I see the king through my variegated veil, I am unable to un-see

                               The obsequious timeworn son behind the temerarious impulsive father.

Finally, here is one of my favorites. It was posted on this page some years ago and is included in my book.

Arjun at the Swayamvar

Being best friends with the divine doesn’t help

The same old intrigue and desperations led me to this contest and fire

My arrow, though true to its mark, is fueled by mortal sinew and blood

The eye it snags spits out tissue and nerve

The whole exercise feels like a hoax, a bad deal with too-tiny small print

But the Fire Princess seems oblivious to any cosmic conspiracy

Seeing only the promise and comfort of my muscled shoulder, my twinkling glance

Admiring only the sensuous garland entwining my bronzed epithelium. 

I lower my eyes (she is shorter by a full head) to hint at my noble humility

She exchanges a quick glance with her brothers, one divine, one fiery

Seeking assurance for the rightness of her choice, the propriety of what is happening

I too look around, but my brothers have forgotten me in the moment

They all are busy blinking tears, of victory, of gratitude

You’d think I’d blinded them when my arrow targeted the fish eye.

They do not smell the fog of envy that clouds the Hall

It stings my eyes as it rises to the canopy and darkens the skies 

 I wonder what sightlessness descended when my arrow pierced that eye

The contest feels weighed, like loaded dice, a veneer covering a warning

A clanging prothalmion sung as prelude to apocalypse

My shoulders sag under the heaviness of flowers as I lift the bridal garland with sure hands

And hang my head to accept the burdensome future of a dying age.

It is my hope that these three voices will remind me how much I loved the project, the stories, and the characters that emerged and began speaking. I am very fortunate that I was allowed to hear. Telling is complicated and could take long. After all, it took my characters all of my life time to reach me! But if they can reach me across the oceans of myths and millennia, I am hopeful that my telling may yet reach out those who await it.

Glow-Wish

Today is supposed to be a spectacular lunar eclipse of a red, harvest moon. But there is a heavy cloud cover so this can only be enjoyed online. Facebook is busy with many pictures of a clear,velvet sky and an improbably large moon; NASA's site has many "like" hits. Today is also Ganesh Visarjan, the day when Ganesh, who had arrived in homes, on streets and in pandals is ceremoniously paraded through the city to be immersed in a river, an ocean, a lake, with loud reminders of a speedy return. It would be a holiday, since the streets would be non-navigable. The TV proclaims Dushera and Diwali celebrations through the country.

Thanks to FaceTime, I celebrated too. However, this year's holiday season makes me very nervous. I have been on dialysis for six months and I am still juggling the process, along with all its accompanying complications. Some days, I feel like a bloated watermelon because the procedure and my body refuse to let go of extra fluid; some days, I wake up exhausted, having lost 6 lbs. overnight. Exhaustion grips me so firmly that I often have no control over the sleep that overtakes me in the middle of a sentence, when I am stitching, even in the middle of a Dr. Who episode! Throwing out the garbage tires me out, so I need a nap right after. There are days on which I am amazed that I do finish my grading and lecturing. May the gods continue this situation for long!

So this holiday season makes me wonder if I can celebrate my favorite festival, Navratri, the way I have been, for over a decade now. If I have to go to work, I need to begin my dialysis rather early and that would preclude my attending the garbas at my temple. On the weekends, I might be under weather, or I might have my clinic the following morning, or perhaps a delivery of dialysis supplies, or my blood appointment. As the year dims, I fear the advancing darkness without the holidays lighting up the long evenings. So I am thinking of alternate ways of celebrating the holidays; not celebrating might cost me part of my very humanity!

Perhaps I can go to the temple on a few nights that would be followed by free mornings. I have stocked up on Tylenol in case of the melting joints thing my body sometimes does. Perhaps I can move my clinic and doctors' appointments for later in the day. I might get an iron infusion that could address the exhaustion. Even if I cannot stay for the entire night's festivities, a little light might be all I need.And I am fortunate enough to live in a time with FaceTime, Facebook, and WhatsApp so that I am always connected to those who have lighted my holidays forever.

These are the ways in which all holidays, rituals, traditions, myths, and faiths remain immortal. I know I am not alone in having to change the way I observe and celebrate. For some, these new ways become the norm and this is wonderful, a new glow in an enduring flame.

Of course, I hope that this change for me is temporary and soon, with a successful transplant, I can return to the way the holidays were. It would be a gift better than renewed youth and beauty.

Let me end this hope-note with genuine gratitude; I know I am immeasurably fortunate in living during a time that allows me to write this even though my kidneys have failed, a sure death sentence just a few decades ago. The holidays are coming and even if I am unable to light up my world with celebrations, I hope that a sure gleam guides me through this year's dimming.

Non-days and Fairy Tales

The rains began early, started as tentative pre-dawn dripping and before a few minutes had ticked, the rains pelted, the skies lit up, all kinds of cosmic drama unleashed on my sleeping town. I have been sick since then. I can't seem to get my wellness scales quite properly balanced, and the daily thunderstorms do not help. So today, I am taking the day off from the grading, from the cleaning, from the cooking, and I am giving in to the pain, the exhaustion, the sofa, and the insistence of the cat for my lap.

And to the Doctor.

Of course, today, the sun beats down and the skies are blue. It feels like a gift to look out of the window and my little back door. I make sure that the blue skies get great, grateful smiles even as I tumble through the time vortex with the TARDIS and battle the Dalek.

Years ago, a student had suggested that I watch at least one season of Dr.Who, and thankfully, I heeded the suggestion. This was a good thing because now that I have run out of Star Trek episodes the library owns, I need some more fairy tales to heal me when I feel any of a thousand ills my flesh is heir to. Yes, I could use Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and a myriad other sites that will feed me endless, current episodes from any show, but I do not have the skill or the wherewithal to learn it when my shoulders and knees are doing their melting down thing they do when they protest, I am not quite sure what. In fact, I do not have the wherewithal to do some basic dusting and laundry.

I had always said that I would write if I had two minutes to rub together. But of late, my stories break my heart. The joy of creating characters and killing them off, or marrying them off, or sending them off, or receiving them back home, seems to have dimmed. Today, I fear that my fingers might melt if I began writing, so this blog goes out as a challenge to that inevitable melting.

Today, I fear I have morphed into Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

Today, I fear that I have been reading too many fairy tales.

Today, I wish for more time to read more fairy tales.

The irresistible thing about fairy tales is precisely that they are NOT escapist stories: "I am not running away from things, I am running to them before they flare and fade for all time," the Doctor claims. How can anyone resist such an Odyssey, especially when one may leave behind one's ornery, grumpy, disagreeable body? Today, I use the body of a 900 year old young man with two hearts to travel through infinite time and space, while my singular human heart jumps with worry that I might not be able to travel a few hundred miles to my child's graduation or visit my birthplace for years. These fairy tales give me hope that in a few days or hours, my melting, aching joints will ease and begin working; I will travel wherever and whenever I wish. After all, everything does end in happily ever after!

The cats' Buddha-like sleep faces bespeak of similar cat-tales. However, the cats are wiser than their dormant forms suggest. Even though the skies have been blue all day long, they are now crowded with mountains of black, belying any existence of the gold the sun had spilled everywhere a few minutes ago. I had wondered why the cats had chosen to nap indoors today; now I know! The doctor is right: things are never what they appear.

Once the parallax is adjusted, though, it all ends quite happily, all things considered. So one might say that today is a non-day, a day I invest in adjusting perception to balance parallax.

Loudly Celebrated

It is the 4th of July again, and again, it is cloudy, hot, and smokey. I do not look forward to this day. Yes, the day off is definitely welcome, but other than that, there are few things that redeem this holiday.

We finish groceries and chores early in the week to avoid leaving the house on this day. The beach is overly over-crowded, as are the few stores that are open. People descend on the beaches and parks armed with chairs and gigantic coolers with lots of beer. Things get really loud after that, and this is just late morning. By the time the 4th dawns, even, the air crackles with extra static and fumes; people have been fire cracking away for days. The little showers that are so much a part of this land and this season, do little but add steam and damp.

One of the extraordinary things about this part of the world, unlike India, is that festivals are all the business of individuals, not the entire community; these are controlled events, contained within designated areas and there is no joy or celebration that spills over to the streets. If one were to find oneself driving around town on festival days, there is little evidence of anything being celebrated.

In India, I remember pandals, exhibits at every street corner, music, people in festive garb, extra hawkers, extra beggars, colored lights and flags stringed all over streets, and no one would be confused about what victory, god, beginning or end is being celebrated. Fresh flowers and colored sand would be in great demand for days before the day, as people plan decorations for their businesses, streets, houses, temples,even public buildings in their neighborhood. There was a particular smell of festivals: the air smelled of marigolds, incense,and laddoos. Freshly cleaned and decorated houses stood invitingly open, the family in newly stitched clothes milling around with neighbors and visitors, sharing sweetmeats with all, acquaintances and strangers alike. Even if one did not share the ideals or the faith being celebrated, one didn't have a choice but to get swept in the celebrations. I loved it all except the firecrackers during Diwali.

Here, I do not have much family in town. So today is truly a day off. No music blares so I cannot work; no fragrances distract; indeed, this could be any Saturday, a sunny morning with rain later on silent streets and quiet houses.

This post may sound unpatriotic or snooty. However, as we move towards a more globalized entity, I wonder how many Independence Days one should celebrate, and what exactly we celebrate. These days celebrate our victories over each other and often, become the flint that spark riots in some parts of the world. I shudder and fear that instead of celebrating end of atrocities, these days open up scabs and force old wounds to bleed and weep anew. They remind us, most of all, of our differences, our separations.

For these reasons, I AM glad that the 4th of July is quieter here than the 15th of August is, in India. After all, freedom-day is a serious thought, a quiet contemplation about the price it demands, an examination of its various hues, a continuous re-adjustment of its definition, and it is a sad day that forces survivors to reflect on the heavy losses incurred.

I wish we had an anthem for the planet, a day that marks end of global atrocities, a song that arouses an upsurge of patriotic feeling for the land, the oceans, and the air above, without imaginary, artificial boundaries that apply only to human beings.

On such a day, perhaps, I will not mind the fire works.

Paradise

The longest day of the year is past, and in the wet afternoons, I smell the coming Fall. My house, it seems, spends the entire Summer preparing for the darkening year and spends the beginning of the year catching its breath. Of course, right now, it is the heat that has stilled us, the cats on the tiled floor and humans surrounded by fans, all of us waiting for the worst of the heat to pass.

This stillness descends every year and yet I never remember it as part of the break between quarters that I so look forward to. Invariably, I wonder where the break has flown, I wonder what kept me from accomplishing the list the end of Spring readies, the list that I review and memorize for weeks in preparation for the break. I do not remember that I spent the break supine on the sofa, defeated by the still, hot air. The very thought of movement, even to get coffee is too much to bear. I spend days without coffee (too hot!), a little vague, a little lost, subconsciously nursing a persistent headache. I wander around the house, waiting for the day to get bearable. This heat is problematic since I hate air conditioning and cannot stand it for very long.

Already, I see that a few precious days have already gone by and I cannot bring myself to revising my rubric, re-constructing my assignments, re-structuring my courses. The sun shining on the gently swaying leaves is so fascinating. The cats seem to understand, since all of them are staring at the same swaying branches that have me so mesmerized.

Perhaps the afternoon (10am-6pm) will have passed when I blink next.

We finish grocery shopping before 10am and do not venture out until after 6. The sun doesn't set until late 8pm, and our entire day has been pushed back, with a giant donut hole of an afternoon squatting in its center.

When the rains wet the earth and I remember Fall, it is not with anticipation of relief from the season; October heat is the worst here. It seems that nothing will stir until the holidays begin, until the Goddess descends and Navratri lights up the nights.

One might very well wonder why I stay here. The days are lethargic and insomnia stretches out the humid nights. Yet I am always extolling the virtues of living in what I call paradise to any who would listen.

Paradise indeed it is, the unbearable afternoons notwithstanding. The dawn and dusk skies are a sight to behold, drama in colors splashed around, covering everything with improbable hues and shadows. It is not unusual to imagine brilliant, clear waters and clean, cerulean skies when imagining paradise. This canvas is a few minutes' drive from my sofa. Of course, I would not recommend seeking out the beach front between 10am and 6pm. But I keep that image in my mind's eye while I stare at the sunlight skipping on the leaves.

There are farmers' markets, nurseries, tropical trails, gardens, and parks with plenty of hospitable shade to while the day, watching butterflies and herbs going about their routines. Sometimes, we go to the movies, the mall, ice cream parlors (I do not partake, of course), and then I keep a shawl because the air conditioning is always cranked up to its coolest in all public indoor places.

Compared to the debilitating cold that regularly grips Northern places, I find this still air much easier to tolerate. For someone who has lived all her immigrant life in Florida, I have shoveled too much snow. If I do not shovel another ounce, it'll  be enough. I hear of horror stories about burst water pipes, failing heaters, cold so biting that one feels it in one's organs and deeper still. And there is no relief from this cold either; no brilliant sunsets to compensate for the day's discomfort, no shining sunlight on dancing leaves, no fragrance of fresh earth with the rainfall.

The terrain here is simple and straight; if one can read a graph, one never needs be lost. The terrain in other places, I know, is complex. It rises and dips, uncaring of its effect on slipping tires and shoes. It demands an ability to balance so that one is constantly looking for that center of being. Often, for months, these rises and dips are hidden beneath inches of snow. Here, the earth centers the being and unless there is something wrong with the internal workings of the organism, no balancing is needed.

I know that the prognosis of this land being the way it is, is not good. I know that this land is being swallowed up and soon, there will be no land. But as long as this land stands, I will choose it; perhaps the oceans will be patient enough to wait for me to be done before they swallow my paradise.

 

Tech-Faced

Facebook just pointed out the many advantages of reading literary fiction; of course, I had to share that on my wall; that is so me! Of late, when I have a few minutes between sets of ungraded papers, waiting for a call back from the pharmacy, or just trying to unwind after a whirlwind day, I find myself scouring Facebook.

Now there is nothing extraordinary or new about this. I would not exaggerate if I claimed that this behaviour is quite common for the 21st century homosapien. It is a sign of the times that I split the people I know into two main group, those on Facebook and those who resist. Since I belong most definitely to the former, I despair of ways of keeping in touch with the latter. Surely, I am not expected to do something primitive like actually making a voice call? My students would shudder at the very idea. After all, even if one were to dial the number (is that phrase obsolete?), what would one say? Every time I do make a voice call, I am aware of an underlying wish that the person I am calling would not pick up, that I could just leave a succinct message and hang up to end the awkward experience. I am also aware that, like the rest of my Gujarati family, I tend to speak louder when I talk on the phone, the logic involving a physics formula about the complex relationship between the volume of the voice and the distance it has to travel. The end of such a call, inevitably, is accompanied with a distinct awareness of the needlessly high tones that one has to own up to.

No. Let us connect on Facebook instead. Or perhaps text. Surely, you have downloaded WhatsApp on your smart phone? Why involve something as personal as, as strange as disembodied voices?

One of the TV channels I watch proclaims Vasudhaiva Kutumbekam (world is one family) as its tag line. I cannot think of a better descriptor for the globalization that I take for granted, an idea that my younger self could only sigh over while watching Star Trek. My child posts pictures from her phone onto my Facebook wall so that now, I know what the EU headquarters in Brussels look like; my cousin FaceTimes with us from Vadodara so that his toddler can show us his new toys; my Google+ holds our clan's photo albums; my Geni informs me when a birthday nears; I can even borrow books from my county library on my Kindle while waiting for my flight connection at Heathrow.

A few of my friends are disappointed at the direction the world seems to be taking; the figure of Darth Vader seems to personify this fear of losing our humanity to technology, very much like the Minotaur expressed the ancient Greek's fear of losing humanity to the beast within. This is a valid fear, of course. However, if being part machine helps us become more human, does it not make the machine more human than the other way around? Take pacemakers or dialysis machines, for example. Would we be willing to go back to a world without those? I remember typing up papers with carbon sheets ensconced in between, which copious gallons of whiteout could not salvage. If given a choice, I would never go back to those days! Many fictional re-creations of post apocalyptic stories explore what the world would be like without the present day's communication channels. My blood runs cold with fright when I read those.

I cannot imagine that devices that help us communicate in varied ways can be essentially malignant. Certainly, some people will misbehave and misuse these devices; however, do we let the fear of misbehaviour guide us? Is it even in our nature to do that? History is evidence that we have always looked for ways to make the world smaller; thanks to Facebook and smart phones, this world is at our fingertips, and it is up to us to expand it exponentially until it becomes real or to contract it to a thumbnail.

I am grateful that I live in the same age as these devices. Worlds I had thought were lost to me have been returned a thousand fold; I am thinking of ancient legends, the dance form I was trained in (Kathak), my favorite painting genre (Indian miniatures), Hindi songs and films from the 1960's, and garbas or Gujarati folk dance music so ancient that most lyrics are derived from oral history. One can enjoy the Gregorian Chant and Sanskrit shlokas with the same crystal clarity as though they were being spoken in one's presence. I can find ancient trade routes or recreate a festival day of an Indonesian wife without much trouble. I wouldn't be able to spark my students' interest in Greek Mythology or Folk Tales if I couldn't bring up Google Images of Echidna or Baba Yaga.

I could go on, of course. I do so love the times I inhabit, may the Luddite gods forgive me! I fail to imagine what the next half decade will bring, but I am very excited about it.

Now my patient reader must excuse me. I must go back to preparing a collection of my favorite garbas on my flash drive so that I can plug it into my car and listen to these ancient lyrics on my way to work. After that, I must find a kidney friendly recipe from websites recommended by my online support group, transfer money between accounts, and order a birthday gift from Amazon; I must flex my fingers and send them racing across the keyboard, and the world I manage. In between these chores, if you are on Facebook, I might wander in and say a quick Hey.



 

Body Language

My body has a language: it sings in numbers and I am grateful to say that I can hear its song.

But first things first: I have been amiss in posting. Things fell apart and the center could not hold.

This anarchy has also been of my body's making. The humors flowed sluggishly; red stitched itself through the eyes; the eyelids proved unable to stay lifted long enough to let the eyes see; the balloon feet staggered, unbalanced; the heart raced to keep up and then slowed down, tired. All I wanted to do was to sink within and let my body have its way. My kidneys have failed, causing panic to shoot through an organic system that had taken its balance and well-being for granted. Undefined anxieties exploded and my mild distaste of needles loomed into a major phobia.

However, today, I am glad to report that the storm has been contained. My kidney disease has brought me many gifts and this entry goes out in acknowledgement of these gifts.

When I was younger, people teased me that I was not of this "modern" world, that I operated from some golden, pre-lapsarian past because of a predilection of seeing the world through romanticized glasses. I have never agreed with this; I am born in exactly the absolute correct age and I never had any pink prisms to filter the world's realities. This age suits me and I owe it my very life. Thanks to this wondrous age, even though my major organs have failed, I am aware of a feeling of undeniable well-being. I can enjoy my job, sustain a conversation, and savor a demi-tasse of coffee. Of late, I have even found the wherewithal to use earrings when I go out for dinner with family and friends.
Yes, these outings exhaust me once they are over; yes, I have muscle cramps that go on for days; yes, I have forgotten what it is like to sleep through the night; yes, my social life is seriously compromised. Even so, all this is nothing when I remember my body's desperate attempt to reach me to help it. I also remember my total inability to help.

Then, this age, this millenium came to my body's rescue and taught me to understand its language. I started dialysis, a miraculous process that helps my confused body to maintain balance, to come to terms with its condition. Patient experts taught me how to listen and talk with the flesh I inhabit.

I have always known that my body has an intelligence all its own, an intelligence that I have no understanding of, that I have been unable to access. But now, I have learned to balance my diet (the strictest kind) with the medications I have to take; I have learned to understand the relationship between daily weight, blood pressure, and the kind of dialysis solution (or dialysate) I use that night. I await my blood results with alacrity because that is how  my body speaks now. Last month, I celebrated my independence from Epogen shots and blood infusions to maintain my red blood cell count; my body actually beat anemia! A couple of weeks ago, my nephrologist congratulated me on controlling my phosphorous after months of trying to achieve the correct balance between including enough protein in my diet while avoiding phosphorous. It took almost a year of trials and failures to achieve the correct potassium numbers.

Every morning, when I take my blood pressure, record my weight, and finish my treatment, I am grateful for the ability to do so. Every evening, when I again take my blood pressure, record my weight, and begin my treatment, I am grateful for having lived the day. Yes, I do wish my life were easier, but more often than that, I am glad, so, so glad that it is as easy as it is!

The Geeta insists on the importance of making friends with oneself. The truth of this issue has been brought to me. I understand now that I need a lot of people and a lot of things, but all pale in comparison to how much I need to get along with my body. I am humbled by the incredible adaptability of my body, its admirable insistence on being my best friend, its stubborn loyalty in its refusal to abandon me, its ever-youthful willingness to accommodate new ways of replacing parts of itself, and at the risk of intense narcissism, I am so, so proud of being allowed to inhabit this wonderful machine that celebrates the spirit of being human with every breath it draws for me, with me.

I have learned to love my body with a completely different sort of appreciation and for that alone, if for nothing else, I wish to live forever with this body. There can be no gift greater than an aware life lived in a body that won't quit.