Life Is Changed Not Taken Away

They only hit until you cry

After that you don't ask why...

The little loss (of this morning)

Is subsumed by the greater loss (of yesterday).

Always looking for her; A pale imitation of Her.

It's a jagged and deep cut that you had forgotten

But when you are there

It's 6:00 on that day.

"She's on her way out..." the nurse said

The milk helped a little and the sun shines.

Written at St. Raymond's Cemetery

July 20, 2007

Nanny

Almost brittle

The woman brightens

Hair a bit greasy

But still the same woman

Who brought me food

And watched too many die.

I am made at ease.

January 21, 2005

on the 7 train

Copyright © 2005 Thomas R. English

26, part 1

The routine

Waiting on the line

Restless sleep

Friends even in Purgatory

Almost human again

Beautiful day, outside.

But still unable to watch TV

But, still, all shall be All,

And all manner of things shall be All.

26, part 2

I saw a cardinal outside my window this morning. It was a red-orange flag placed by the Electric Company instead

But maybe it was a cardinal after all

Energy binds us

Ohms and Oms

Weak Force.

Strong Force.

Unseeable.

Unkowable.

It is here

I will be admitting myself to Chilton Hospital later today

I do not know how long I will be there. I have a new phone number: (973) 468 5808

My Death Anxiety has come back with a vengeance!

I also think what's happening is I am processing Mike's death (and Chris', and my Mom's, and my Dad's, and my Grandmother's). Something I thought I had done earlier. It has caused a Generalized Anxiety that has destroyed my sense of time, and it's really hard for me to read or even remember the point of reading. Thus, I am going under some hypnosis tonight that is supposed to be 100% effective. Once I get rid of the Death Anxiety, I am pretty confident the Depersonalization and Derealization will fade away. My fingers are crossed and I am praying...

March 7 – 88 – 12 (Part 3; Conclusion)

12 and beyond

This is the scariest part to think about, and the scariest part to write.

When I get to Francine’s, I am immediately put into a 14-day Quarantine in her finished basement, which, heretofore had been use for storage. She and her daughter Christina had turned it into Tom’s Mancave, complete with Tom’s Corral, a bed area with old-timey horses.

Very comfortable.

After 12 days it became obvious that I did not have the virus (I had spent 88 days inside, after all). The only reason we did the Quarantine was just in case of the theoretical possibility that JJH and I had “caught” virus in the transfer.

The first two days were Hellish; even though I was away from immediate danger, the thing about the mind is it is slow to tell you that. I was close to the “s” word, but I had no plans or ideations, just passive thoughts.

Quarantine in many ways was a blast. Maybe not a blast, so much as I felt safe and cared for. Many times over the course of the 12 days I thought the best thing would be to be hospitalized, but there was no hospital where I would get great food, a great view, and my medicine.

As I write this, I would definitely say I am better than five weeks ago, but I have residual Death Anxiety, and fairly severe Depersonalization and Derealization. Simply stated, most everything seems like a dream, even my sense of Self. I’ve had this before, and it has always resolved; sometimes in a few weeks, sometimes in a few months, other times in a few years. My longest episode was four years, from 1992-1996, when I could not work and was on Disability.

That is was I am terrified of now.

Though, unlike then, I am able to work.

Medicine (Paxil, Ativan, and Abilify) are, in theory, supposed to work, but they take forever (4-8 weeks).

And the COVID Pandemic has not helped either-everything is fairly surreal as it is, and it’s rare to see people in person, anyway. Maybe I should have come out to NJ earlier, but the truth is Francine is also taking care of her Mother, so it always would have been a logistical challenge.

I am doing my best to deal with my Depersonalization/ Derealization. Reading is touch-and-go, though I am doing as much of it as I can. I walk Coco at least once a day, and try to do simple errands around the house, though I do feel like I am re-learning how to do things. Weirdly enough, I do have some agoraphobia, and my existence in space seems weird. I hope to fix that by taking long walks, and, eventually, riding my bike.

Each time my Breakdowns have happened, I have recovered. What I am most terrified of is that this is a Relapse of 1992. That wasn’t fun.

But I can’t believe my book is over.

Lincoln Park, July 2, 2020

March 7 – 88 – 12 (Part 2)

Death, death, death.

Every day.

One day, I counted the sirens of over 30 ambulances, likely COVID victims on the way to Elmhurst Hospital, almost a mile down the block, and where I spent 40 days in 1992. I saw rows upon rows of pine boxes in a ditch on Hart Island. Hart Island is an Island in the East River, where for many generations, the penniless have been buried. For COVID, it was being used for when the City’s other cemeteries were full.

Again wondering, in my 3 ½ room apartment, whether that would be me, talking to no-one except virtually or on the phone, maybe occasionally hearing the sound of my own voice.

The routine: wake up at 5:30am, read for awhile, sometimes take a shower (I couldn’t find a lot of toiletries online), zap some sausages in the microwave, maybe cook some eggs. Then maybe Italian sausages for lunch, again, zapped. The last really good meal I made for myself was chicken makhani. Really good.

But I had gotten too too regimented, afraid to go out because I was in the epicenter, and the local supermarket was too crowded. I ran out of toilet paper and toothpaste, but I was able to find a source of toilet paper.

Again, a huge mistake trying to ride it out myself.

It did not help that we have a society where people’s lives, when it gets down to it, are not valued in the least. Trump ordering meatpackers to report for work despite high COVID risk. Arbitraging PPE so Jared could make money.

The last, most egregious: the murder of George Floyd. Almost 10 minutes. Mama, mama. Evil incarnated in a uniform. Not just the knee, but the Asian-American officer shooing people away. Too much to bear. Civil unrest over the murder; all of it justified.

I despaired.

And broke down.

Realizing, thinking more about Death and possible meaningless, nothingness, though I do in fact believe in Consolation after this life. It is hard to divide by 0, though.

I have probably had five or six Breakdowns in my life; the worst was 1992. Every single one has been about Death Anxiety and Purpose Anxiety. The shortest (about three weeks) was in 2018. This one feels a lot like 1992, but I am still working…

I truly realized I cannot live alone.

I called Francine; JJH was going to drive me to her house.

Between the initial arrangement and the day I arrived in NJ, four days elapsed.

The following paragraphs have some graphic content, but since you are my Brothers, I do not feel uncomfortable sharing.

After making arrangements to go to NJ, I still had to wait four days, both for the ride and my new meds to be delivered (Ativan being most important). Those days were Hell.

I felt like jumping out of my skin. Though I never had active suicidal ideations, I didn’t trust myself in the state I was in. The state I was in: one morning, I saw that I had drank some soda during the night. I did not remember doing so. Did I sleepwalk and drink it? Consequently, and I do no think so dramatically, I hid every single sharp item in the apartment, just in case I woke up half awake in the middle of the night and did something stupid.

Tuesday came, the day of Freedom. Perhaps the roughest day. I hadn’t gotten my tranquilizer yet, so I still felt like jumping out of my skin. Just to stay in place, I said the full Rosary, out loud, all the Decades, all the Mysteries. I felt like a different person, or, more exactly, two different people arguing with each other. Without getting into it too too much, my Theology has definitely changed. My Uncle kept me grounded by reading most of the Psalms to me.

The medicine arrived. So did JJH.

March 7 – 88 – 12 (Part 1)

The last three months have been filled with many mistakes; the last one is one which I pray that I can take back.

Games Day on March 7 in the Heights was not one of those mistakes. It started and went off like most Games Days-getting up early, cleaning the apartment, anticipating all my friends coming out and geeking out on some geeky games, and some early morning booze.

But something different was in the air. Maybe not in the apartment, that day, but some terror lurked offshore and in parts of the country.

The coronavirus.

Yes, we have had many coronaviruses (plural), most which we experience as a common cold.

But this one was different.

And I think that was the subtext of that Games Day so long ago.

We talked about it a tiny bit, and looked up and remembered the plural of virus.

But, more indicative of the change in living that was to come was the fact that we played and played and played until about 12:30am. Deal or Duel. A mediocre game with some great flavor text. TK, Rob, and me.

When we finally said our goodbyes, we went to “elbow” pump each other; but then decided to hug each instead, because we knew it would be the last time we’d be in each other’s presence for a long time.

Until the next day or so, it’s the last human physical contact I had with friends or loved ones since then.

88

I started working from home on March 9. I did go out to the local Burger King the next day, armed with hand sanitizer.

But I needed my two Whoppers, fries, and Coke Zero!

I haven’t been in a crowd of people since then.

I remember telling my immediate boss that working from home would be fun.

And so it was.

I eliminated about three hours of commute time, and I got into a routine-I’d watch de Blasio, Cuomo, and even Trump; waiting for what Dr. Fauci would say. And I’d get updates on the virus from Dr. John Campbell, a Professor in Nurse Practice in the UK. And virtual Mass and call-in Rosary.

I was set.

But I was scared; looking back on it, I was probably more terrified than scared.

But I did feel the palpable presence of everyone who had lived with me in the apartment.

I would tough it out.

I have always had OCD, so I became the super-heavy purveyor and doer of OCD. I decided I wouldn’t leave my apartment for the duration, be it six weeks or fiver years. I only took the garbage out once every week or so. I kept all my recyclables in my kitchen, terrified to even use the elevator for two or three minutes because of the smallness of the space and the possibility there might be extra virus; lurking. I did not open the windows for a few weeks because of the theoretical possibility…

By OCD I mean this: the few times I left my apartment, to throw out the garbage through the compactor chute, to pick up mail (I held the mail for 45 days for fear of going downstairs), to pick up the food delivery, even to finally take a walk around the block in May, I would put on my mask and gloves, and, as soon as I got back, I would strip down at the front door, and race to take a shower. Any items I had brought upstairs I would be sure not to touch for three days. The same ritual. Every time.

I feared even any slight slip-up: 55 years old, technically obese, and asthmatic, my profound terror was that I would die, alone, in my apartment. Why this fear? A number of people in my neighborhood suffered that fate,

Coco

Coco, my Coco!

Thought she didn’t recognize me at first

An early-morning walk with gloves and mask

Perhaps not needed

I found her

I love her

Now she licks my face (in recognition)

Like Before

And walks, though beginning anxiously

Are like before

Singularity

           Vic bellied up to the counter at Kerr’s and ordered a donut and a coffee, black. He smiled, waited for the waitress with the glistening bald head—to each her own—to respond with a smile at his joke, but she dropped the dinner menu in front of him and shuffled humidly to the next customer.

Vic settled into his chair and swiveled it so he could take in the room. Ten tables all filled with the jabbering of languages he had never heard before, if that’s what they were. Some sounds were hushed like the breeze in summer leaves. The corner table buzzed and hummed like the live wires which, judging from the blue arcs dancing among those three seated lovers, they might actually be.

It had been days/weeks/seconds/millennia since Vic’s resupply interport went off course on the Orion route and found its way to Monoceros, which is the surprising location that Vic, who was still coughing up perfluorocarbon from the long dream of space travel, had to check through an actual window before he’d believe it. Nobody had ever ventured out this far and for good reason. Human anatomy plus even a weak x-ray nova like A0620 make for a painful—albeit quick—death.

Nevertheless, here he was, and he realized that he was hungry. He swiveled back to take a look at the menu. Yes, here he was, and here was the donut he asked for, just like he liked it, on a black plate with a yellow rim.

He regarded the chocolate torus on his plate.

There was something about that shape that got him every time, reminded him of stuff he learned about at pilot school, stuff like singularities and wormholes. He closed his eyes tight.

Black holes.

Monoceros.

There’s no way his little pressurized can with its third-hand negative mass thrusters and graviton sail could have avoided the event horizon of that system, the nearest black hole to Earth. He remembered waking up jarringly from the long sleep at the alarm. He remembered understanding quickly how screwed he actually was. He remembered settling into his seat and cranking the music: Kevlar’s “Subtonal Opera Number i,” the favorite of his youth, to focus his mind. He remembered the vague nausea and the strange blue shimmer as the starfield curved into an ever-shrinking ellipse.

And then he remembered nothing until the tinkling of this bell and the welcoming electric aroma of coffee.

Vic poked his finger through the hole of the donut and lifted it like a ring. He took a bite. Now that was real, he thought. He was sure of that.

A song came on the diner’s jukebox, that oldie by Sir Carter Knowles he used to like.

How was that possible?

He turned again to find the room filled with people—actual human people—dressed sharp and happily eating breakfast. At the corner table sat a woman with two small boys. One boy ate oatmeal and melons while he colored his placemat with a crayon. The other held a chocolate donut aloft on his index finger, nibbling the edge and turning it slowly.

Vic smiled.

Nice family.

The dress the mother wore looked so familiar. It looked just like the one that his mom wore on Sundays when she bribed her sons to go to church with her by taking them out for breakfast afterward.

She lifted her head and, for the first time, noticed Vic.

A curious puzzlement came over her face.

She lifted her hand as if to wave, but Vic turned away in alarm.

This could not be happening.

He shook his head, dug his fingernails into each palm to try to wake up. It was as if he had been snared by something unimaginably more powerful than himself.

Unconsciously, he nibbled at the slowly rotating donut that he held aloft, his index finger poked through the hole, and felt his memory, his mind, his body stretched thin through a prism of confusion and loss.

Spaghetti.

That’s what he felt like for dinner.

Spaghetti.

The Science Fair

The Science Fair

It is the annual science fair, and I am a judge. I’ve taught high school Physics for twenty years now. I get called to do science fairs pretty often. Comes with the territory. This particular fair is is in a town a few over from mine. Five high schools are here, and for two hours I need to feign interest in pH graphs, conductivity, fruit flies, and dissections done by students I don’t know.

I am 45 years old.

A periodic comet is a remnant of the creation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago, I learn from a mousy boy’s poster. It is massive enough to be buffeted by everything gravitationally as it makes its chaotic orbit, its outsides bombarded by the solar wind. Not bad. Thanks, I say, and move along. The boy eyes my white judge’s ribbon nervously.

Just after the kid who flipped nickels one hundred thousand times, and recorded each one (good lord), is a poster about the melting properties of various winter road treatments. I don’t like winter driving at all. A barbaric age we live in. The poster is unattended. On the right wing of the trifold is a photo of a mangled car at the bottom of a snowy ditch. I reach out to touch it and remember a friend I loved deeply, dead just like that on an icy road. Years have passed and the wound is still fresh. I close my eyes to try to pull her image from my memory.

When I open my eyes, I see the girl who has come back to her poster. She has a paper cup filled with water. Water is melted ice. She smiles.

Her eyes.

So familiar somehow. But she is no student of mine.

And the crooked smile.

Nice poster, I say. Tell me about it.

Her project is more memoir than anything scientific. She tells me about her family—two younger sisters, her mother—how they slid into the wrong lane on an icy road, how none of them survived.

She tells me that they had been searching for a house—the first they’d buy. Her mother wanted a log home on a river so she could canoe. The girl argued that it would be too far to travel to school and she would have no social life that far away from other people.

Secretly, she thought that her mom was too picky, that they should just buy something and it would feel like home. She tilts her head to laugh as if she is pouring a small cup of happiness from a pitcher.

Her father hadn’t come back from Germany after the divorce, even after the accident. That's where he's from, the girl told me. She lived with cousins on her mother’s side now. He’s from Germany, she told me again and finished the water.

Our children—I have none—our children—this child—are chunks of dirty ice that hurtle out of the Oort Cloud, propelled by god knows what at 40 km/sec. They all start off intact and massive and seek the warm sun that, like all desires, blinds and burns us.

Our past is the tail of a comet, chunks of our young selves careening off gloriously into color and light, trailing behind our diminishing bodies.

She tells me things about her family—secrets. I feel compelled to reciprocate. A few years back, I met a woman on a beach in Maine, I want to tell her. We both stopped and stared at each other. We shared our names and tried to figure out how we knew each other. We tried everything, interests, geography, common friends, nor were our names familiar to each other in any way. She grew up in New Hampshire, me in New York City. She went to college in Maine, I in North Carolina. And so on. There was no overlap. And yet were were certain. We smiled at the strangeness and eventually parted.

This mystical loneliness, broken parts of us melting off into the void, pieces of us shattering, our bodies diminished second by second by the light and heat and mass that calls to us across the void of loneliness.

Her mother—dead for a year—wanted a log home on a river. Her daughter, alone now, studies road salt. I teach Physics. An hour ago, I knew a lot of things. I was a judge at this science fair, for example.

Now, right this second, I know less than nothing.