Waiting for the mail

Morning sunshine through a second floor window
9:30 am, post coffee, already dressed
Talking with my father about
the day. How to make a day.

I am waiting for a cheque in the mail,
he says. The mortgage is due tomorrow.
Unemployed four months, the
insurance covers mortgage and groceries.
Stops the hemorrhage, he says.

I calculate how much cash I have on hand.
It’s not enough. Can I get a
wire transfer from my bank in
New York? Is that possible from away?
Half a life ago we sat in
this southern-facing sun and
counted twenties. Handing over
babysitting money for the house.

10:30 passes. The mailman is on the street,
dad says. I am unable to type, to read.
I put my head down on my knees.
11:00 and he passes the house.
No mail. Dad leaves.
Comes running back. I met him
on the walk! Spotted with sweat
he bikes off to the bank.

Travels and travels

A point on the circle.

The season of expecting.
Delicate excitement, precise plans. Burning
things and counting hours. Smell
approaching peak for
youness, candle just before the start.

The season of arriving. The days
of here, of time and stories
Unreturned calls and proper meals.

One next, not lately
blush of coming turns to
being, and the season opens
spaces. Other people, sleep
at different times.

Then again season of leaving.
Rapid pack and run for planes.
Calmness shaped
hole in the universe.

Soon resigned and calling
friends. Season of running,
waking early, working late.
Hidden rites of girly grooming.
Wondering on civil war,
Watching news of airplanes
lost over the sea.

This is the most familiar season
secretly suspecting I am
better far away.
Deep reserves of waiting
day by day following
you moving back and forth
and far away.

public in transport

You take it running
The M 13 is artery and vein
Home, garden, tea
stolen toilet paper from
convention space mid route.

The M 13 has a heart beside the numbers
Painted red, most likely.
Five men in the driving cabin, one driving
Two reading a paper,
One yelling the stops
One sitting in his lap.

One woman in window seat
Turns from breeze and gestures with her arm

A handspan from elbow
Her forearm bones in high relief
Take quarter circle turn
Bone meets bone improbably
Blue against her brown, tattooed numbers

We watch the milk stands,
Carts of grapes and wedding lights
A bus above it all


In Bombay the trains breathe
Sighing gently dripping people
Sitting knee to standing knee.
One women in the middle
Sways alarmed. Quiet face
Not joking in this world
Of women before dinner.
One hand overhead
Grips rail and single cauliflower
White against the din.

The seven taxi cabs of DC

Georgetown bar has green beer
Not on St. Patrick’s day
Tasting of water and full of
Fresh-faced boys with salmon shorts
And blue polo shoulders.
Sweet lonely gay boy sits beside
Tall girl in expensive, ugly dress.

How many balls are they coming from,
We ask ourselves.

2 am in the streets
String of cabs drop them off
First cab won’t unlock his door.
Where are you going, he asks.
Where are you going.
I turn around and walk away.

Second one opens his door
Says he won’t take me.
Slow second pass. I’m not sure
You’re allowed to do that, I say.

His car is running hot, he points.
Don’t you drive? 94828 is his tag.
If you see him in the street, tell him
He does not poo gold.

Third taxi takes me in and nods.
Sliding over, I find some girl with the
brain power of a Roomba has left everything
on the seat. I hand keys, card, licence
to the driver. He apologizes as I get out
He turns around to find her.

Fifth cab just behind the fourth
won’t unlock the door. I have a pick up,
he says. I cross the street and stand
On the lighted stretch just off the bridge.
Thinking of how I ride to work
Every day this way, free and powerful
On my bike beating buses up the hill.

Sixth cab opens his door and I sit down.
Same guy as the fifth! You had a pick up
Says me. I’ll drop you closer for free, says he.
Out I get and almost out loud tell the world
I am too old for this.
Suddenly thankful in my weary cells
To not be too drunk, and to have known
Greater taxi driving assholes than he.

Seventh cab this afternoon
All my worldly (three month) goods
waiting in the front room. Won’t pull over
to the curb, asks just how much stuff
I’m talking about. A lot, I nod,
But all packed up nicely.
No trouble at all.
“My laundry is still in my trunk.
God bless you.” And on he drives
into darkening sky of storm.

One month by the numbers

So many varieties of not like yourself

So you’re staying away
A month or more

One month with lots of time
Reading about the Lebanese civil war,
Making bread that takes
Three rises, all different temperatures
Maybe meditating
Maybe working just too hard

One month by the numbers

Two episodes of frozen pipes
2 million people on the Mall
2 chinese food visits
5 fire trucks out last night
1 package of hashbrowns eaten
1 fall from a bike
1 cycle past a presidential limo (confirmed)
1 L of beer consumed at Saloon. Classy
17 min average a day spent in procrastination, v 13 min a day for news
2 grapefruit eaten. I forgot how good grapefruits are
4 hours in skype video. All at once
$11 owed to friends. Probably more.
30 seconds on my head


Learned
Where water comes from in DC
What sunrise looks like over the Capital
Rumi is really a good poet. Really good
Bread takes a long time, but it’s worth it.
They still make rolling pins out of trees in Vermont
Spanish. None, actually. Got mixed up with the French and neither went anywhere
How to teach people how to treat me. Not really.
Oliver Schroer is lovely
I get things ready to mail, and then I forget
Not all jumbo slices are created equal
I am finally bored of beans

Life progress in park

Dog park then small kids
Playground, sandbox, to big kids
Climber to beer hall

what can we do

The calls came late, and I thought it was from her so I didn’t pick it up. After the second I turned off the ringer. Over morning coffee I listened to the three messages, all from Gavin, saying there wasn’t anything specific to say, but call him back as soon as possible in the morning. The third message was from the landline in Toronto; in the archeology of misery going back to the house is the deepest muck of danger.

The backstory. While my grandpa was having a heart valve replaced, my father went to Halifax to take care of his mother. While he was out my mother slipped on the way to the liquor store and could not get up. 3:30 pm on a Thursday, give or take. The people in the park called an ambulance but she wouldn’t go to the hospital. The police took her home. She gave them my brother Owen’s number in Guelph, who called Gavin, who actually lives close enough to meet the police in the house.

The middle of the story sounds like Rice Krispies, or maybe bubble wrap. Rice Krispies is what your skin sounds like when you have punctured a lung and air is leaking into your body cavity. The doctors told Gavin that if he hadn’t come home on Saturday night she would not be breathing right now. They didn’t take her seriously at first at the hospital because she is a drunk and she has been there many times before. Now the medical students have each, one by one, lined up to feel what a floating two inch piece of rib does to a body.

What it brings out in us is beautiful and shattered. Owen cleans the kitchen and writes an exam on philosophy of the mind. Gavin has a birthday in a hospital, and wrenches his back coughing. Aileen smiles at people at work and tells them it will be OK. Call the dentist. Write the cheques. Make a lunch. Don’t look too sad in public. Don’t forget how to remember what you’re here for, for when you’re able to remember.

inauguration

It turns out it doesn’t hurt that much. To lie on the frozen ground at 5 am, on top of a blanket from Afghanistan on top of a cardboard box. Other people formed what looked like an old fashioned cuddle puddle, except with more clothing, no drugs, and no movement. By 3:00 am I was hearing voices walking by on Columbia Rd. When we got on the train at 4:15 am the platform was moderately full. When the train stopped at Shaw-Howard, people were calling out ‘coming in!’ as they forced the crowd. We all felt pretty smart at that point, thinking of the millions still to pass through Metro doors.

If the election was celebration, the inauguration was work. We didn’t want Obama to make it warmer. We didn’t want him to fix global warming, Guantanamo, green jobs, and pick a puppy in 100 days. We did have a million people on the Mall who wanted to believe. If you had asked a million people to stand in the cold for 12 hours because they believed in themselves, what would have happened? So we believe in someone else for a while, and hopefully do the work.

The cold started getting alarming after sun rise. My toes went from chilly to frigid with sparky bits. The jumbo tron had advice for the elements, including the first, ‘stay dry’. Other than that, your warming station opens in 2 hours and is 300,000 souls away. The five of us sat with our knees together and our feet under a blanket. A guy from Ohio asked us, what are you guys doing under there? “It’s how we make babies”, we replied.

Maybe at some point we’ll forget shivering with disgust at Bush’s speeches. Obama told the world it is a false choice between security and values. He asked America to be a place that created opportunity, with individual ingenuity and collective wisdom. What would it mean, to live your life for your grandchildren instead of the next election, promotion, protest, poem. For me it would mean, what do I want them to be unable to understand. How will they say, “I don’t know how it could be that bad”. It’s what I would say to my great grandmother who couldn’t vote. To the Irish who starved. To the redheads who were burned at the stake. To the Egyptian mummy in the Royal Ontario Museum who died of an abscessed tooth. Time to dream big, everyone. Time to take some risks.

Medical decisions in America

One Sunday in early December I felt a bit off. A pain with a trail of alarm, a visitor bringing awareness to the brilliant functioning of every other day. On Tuesday I was truly ill. I called the doctor’s office, the physician I had chosen from my insurer’s website. They were between my office and my house and I needed them urgently.

The receptionist asked me whether I was a new patient, and which insurance I had. Ah, she said, we don’t accept that company. I found you listed on their website, I responded. We’re a provider, she said. A participating provider, but not a preferred provider. You need to select a preferred provider, she explained. But you are on their database, I repeated, more slowly this time. I never had an option to choose, preferred or participating. We get this all the time, she said. Their list is wrong. I don’t understand, I said. I broke down. You need to call your insurance, she said. I’ll book you for an appointment today at 5, and you check with them. But make sure, because sometimes people come in your situation and end up with bills. The receptionist was calmer and more sympathetic as my voice cracked and silences sprouted between my words. Bills! I thought. Half of American bankruptcies are due to medical bills! What’s happening? You have our address, she said. Yeah, you’re at 1700 17th St. Oh! No, you want the DC location. You called Virginia. But…this is your address in the website, I replied. Well, she said kindly, you need to call your insurance company.

I hung up the phone and broke down some more. I was desperate, and the person who I was told could take care of me was turning me away. I called the insurance company, and a very understanding young woman offered a name in the District. The office picked up the phone. Yes, we accept that insurance company, they said. But no appointments are available until mid-February. They hung up.

The fever inched up, as judged by a medical student friend, an unlicensed foreign doctor, a RiteAid thermometer. On Friday I woke up with a pain in my left lower back. It hurt to move and I was nauseous. I stood and stared at my bureau, poking under my ribs. What are you deciding? I reminded myself. $25 copay and a trip out to Virgina, or stay at home? Another poke, another pain. $25 copay and train and train and bus or stay at home. Another poke. It took a long time to decide. I packed my bag and collected my papers.

The clinic was clean and kind and right where it was supposed to be. The doctor thumped my back where I said it hurt. Her eyes widened and she started writing. Take two of these a day for ten days, she said. Lots of fluids.

Waiting for the bus back I felt a vague euphoria. I’m going to get better, I’m better already. I rushed the prescription to a pharmacy, and went to get my first food of the day. Ah, the pharmacist said when I returned, you have prescription for 20 pills. Your insurance company says you can have 6 pills every 30 days.

On Friday afternoon the insurance company computers decided that I wasn’t as sick as the doctor said. Or, the company doesn’t care. With the clear medical danger of cutting off antibiotics mid-course, and a written request from a doctor, they refused. We could expect a response in three to five business days, they said. The cost to them of the additional pills? $34.

When I’m ill, I’m not good at making decisions. I bought two boxes of dry cereal and tried to put them in the fridge. If a friend asked me, can you pick up my kid from school, I would say, I probably shouldn’t be driving right now.

Choice about health decisions is an impossible expectation. First my employer picks the insurance company. I try to pick a doctor from a list full of errors. When I am sick, the company decides how much medicine I can take. The same corporation that can’t keep track of the location of its doctors tells me I get three days of pills instead of 10. If a car company sold brakes that stopped 30% of the speed, and told us to wait three to five days, maybe, for the remainder, it would be hauled over the coals when the first person plowed into a tree. And yet the health insurance companies hide behind layers of disclaimers and lobbyists and tell us we chose it. Well, I have sat in fear and confusion, and I want something better. Where is it? Who do I talk to?