Sore Heart

Sore Heart

Eyes downcast, sad faced, she said, “I never thought I’d live this long.” 

She’s 89 years old and one of my new home care clients.  Her husband of 69 years had recently suffered a stroke and been transferred to a long-term nursing facility.  She’d taken care of him for the past few years herself.  Suffering dementia and at times incontinent, she’d bathed, fed, dressed, and cleaned up after him.  It’s not easy work for an 89 year old woman; I do it professionally and it wears you out.

I’d heard that phrase before.  Too many times in fact.  “I never thought I’d live this long.” 

I work with the elderly.  I see their suffering.  In addition to physical issues, many of them suffer with addled minds, dementia, alzheimers.  Almost all of them suffer from depression.  None of them ever dreamed they would live well into their 80’s and 90’s.  Medical science is a wonder, I guess.  We live longer these days…jury’s still out on whether we live better. 

In the course of my work I see much suffering, much loneliness, much despair.  I’ve sat with dying residents, held their hands, hugged them, kissed them, whispered in their ears that it is, “okay, you’ll be alright, you can let go…”  I’ve had residents pass while I was administering care on them…breathing one second, gone the next.  I’ve watched others linger for days, weeks…moaning, crying, unable to let go, scared of the beyond I guess.   

I’ve also comforted the ones who are not dying, yet.  Scared eyes, looking to me, as if I had some great understanding or wisdom.  I don’t.  I can only provide a warm touch, reassuring words, a smile…sometimes I hold their face in my palms…comfort…and it reminds me when I would do the same for my scared children. 

I work with others who provide the same care, the same comfort that I do.  We grumble often, sometimes use dark and “gallows” humor to help us cope with the work we do.  Most of the time it is monotonous, back-breaking, thankless labor.  Elderly people are ruled by routine and ritual.  We do the same things with them, day after day, after day.  Deviations from their individual routines are upsetting to them.  For us, it gets old.  Yet we go back for each shift, punch in, and give care.  Though it is hard work, it is rewarding too.  It feels good to know that you’re helping people.  And when they smile, or laugh at your jokes, it can make your whole shift a little easier. 

Some of the people I work with are lazy though.  They provide minimal care.  They don’t do their share of the work load.  And it makes it hard for those of us who have to pick up the slack.  Some of these people are lazy by nature.  Some of them are newer aides and never anticipated how hard this work could be and shirk away from it.  Some are simply burnt out; they’ve been doing this so long that they’ve reached a point of “compassion fatigue,” and they just don’t have the will anymore to care as much as they should.  It’s hard enough to do this work and carry your own load, but when others aren’t carrying theirs, it breeds resentment.  Working mostly with women, it can and does get pretty bitchy sometimes. 

Some of the people I work with though are not only hard and diligent workers, but they bring even more with them to each shift.  They are strong enough of character to recognize the insanity of what we do, and still find time and energy to smile and laugh and help not only the people they care for, but their co-workers as well.  They make a shift go by much more pleasantly; you enjoy being teamed up with them.  And sometimes, on rare occasions, you even have fun working with them. 

The old people I care for never expected to live so long.  People my age and younger, expect to live for a good long time yet.  We have dreams and aspirations, loves and passions, people we love, people we have yet to meet and fall in love with…we have life to live…  None of us expect that it can all end so suddenly.  Though we know life is short and precious, we don’t want to believe that sometimes it is too short and too precious…

A woman I worked with in my old job passed away the other day.  She’d been in a terrible motorcycle accident over a week before and had lingered in a coma until she finally passed.  She was a mother, daughter, friend, and co-worker to many.  She was a caregiver like me, a licensed nurse’s aide.  And she was one of the good ones.  Though I worked on a different unit than her, I always remember her smile, she had a great, great smile, and a wry sense of humor…as she went about the daily toil of our work.  She cared, really cared about the people she had on her unit.  She knew her job, and she never shirked her duties.  She cared about her co-workers too.  Working with her, you knew your shift was going to be just a little bit easier.  She will be missed by them I’m sure.  And though I left that job a few months ago, I will miss her too. 

My heart is sore today.  People my age, good people, are not supposed to die so young.  She had so much more living to do.  It’s just not fair.  She was a person who gave of herself, gave so much to so many…where is the karmic justice in that?  But I know…life is not fair.  All we can do…is live it.  Cherish it.  And love those around us who share our times. 

You will be missed Jean.  Much love.  Much peace.  RIP, my friend…

Ocean People vs. Lake People

            There are people who love dogs and there are people who love cats.  Rare are the people who love both.  Cat owners will tell you cats are best because they don’t slobber and drool and bark and fart.  They cuddle on your lap, warm and purring as you casually stroke their fur.  But they’re quiet and they’re not needy; they know how to take care of themselves.  Dog people on the other hand will boast about the loyalty and affection of dogs.  They wag their tails and rush to see you when you come home, they poop outside of the house and they love nothing more than being with you, whether you’re strolling the beach or lounging on your couch watching the boob tube. 

            It’s been my experience that just as some people prefer canine to feline, or vice-versa, there are those who will extol the virtues of lakes over oceans, or vice-versa.  Rarely do these people mix. 

            It’s easy to spot a lake person.  In ironic contrast to the quiet peace of the still waters of lakes, they usually attract people who like things loud.  Loud motorcyles.  Loud motorboats.  Loud jet-skis.  Loud music blasting from their loud convertibles.  Loud music blasting from their decks overlooking the water.  Loud and drunken parties into the wee hours.  Loud.

            Ocean people are more about peace.  Quiet.  Serenity.  The ocean itself already provides its own chorus.  The constant murmur of surf on the beach.  Gulls squawking overhead.  Lonesome tones of fog horns out in the mist.  Kids squealing in delight as they jump waves.  Beach parties are more about sipping wine and beer, munching lobster and steamers, bonfires and the gentle strumming of guitars and ukuleles.  People will sit and watch the ocean for hours; it’s never dull, never the same, always in motion, waves and tides, and the ebb and flow of beachgoers.  Solitude for the early risers, watching scurrying sandpipers in the golden reflection of the sunrise on wet sand.  Thronging humanity sunning, frisbeeing, bikiniing, splashing, surfing, during the mid-day hours.  The languid peace of the late afternoon sun, alighting the sky, glowing on the water. 

            Lake people dress in leather chaps and clunky leather boots.  Ocean people paint their toes and wear flip-flops and shell necklaces.  Lake people speed across the water in outboard speed boats, painted in garish colors, with faux flames and racing pinstripes.  Ocean people paddle stand-up paddleboards, windsurf, kite-board, and prefer their boats with white sails and varnished teak wood. 

            As for me, I own both a cat and a dog; I appreciate what each has to offer, though my greatest affection extends to the tongue lapping, tail wagging dog.  I also enjoy visiting the lakes…but I have to live at the ocean.  For me, the ocean is just so much more dynamic.  Always in motion, always changing, never the same from one day to the next.  I love its smell, everything from the salt tanged air, to the methanic aroma of rotting seaweed on the beach after a storm.  I love the tides, how the tidepools I explore amongst exposed rocks at low-tide, will be flooded over for me to snorkel over at high-tide.  My family used to rent a beach cottage every year so that might have something to do with my particular affinity for the sea.  I grew up boating and sailing, snorkeling and surfing.  On the water, in the water, under the water, every day.  In my early days I wanted to be a marine biologist and dive with seals and dolphins ala, Jacques Cousteau.  When my older brother taught me to sail his little O’day Widgeon sloop, I formulated my lifelong dream of owning my own boat and circumnavigating the globe.  When I started surfing as a teenager, that sailing dream expanded into a sailing and surfing dream, sailing across oceans, surfing deserted islands and forgotten stretches of the major continents, meeting native peoples and watching tropical sunsets, strumming my ukulele on the beach with some good friends, sleeping under the stars with a special person who shared my passion for the ocean environment…

            I don’t dislike lakes nor do I begrudge the Harley and Kawasaki people their loud machines on quiet water…but for me, the sea is everything, it’s my life, my blood, my passion, my love…  I think in a former life I must have been a seal or a dolphin; maybe that’s why I have to be close to the water…maybe there’s something in my DNA that is inherently linked to the ocean…all I know for sure is that if I indeed came from the ocean, it is to the ocean I must return, again and again…and when my time on this planet is done, I hope that those who collect my ashes, will spread them over the water at my favorite surf break…my spiritual home… 

Groundswell and Poverty

I recently had to wake up to a hard reality: I'm poor.  

Coming home utterly famished after my nearly 4 hour surf session the other day, I looked in my fridge and saw that the shelves were completely bare, save for about a quarter of a red onion.  I looked in the freezer as well.  There was a frozen bag of peas that I had used and reused, multiple times, to soothe aching knees.  I think it's been in the freezer over two years.  But when the post-surf munchies swarm you, and you have nothing else to work with...you make do.  I sliced and sauteed the onion in a skillet while I chopped and broke up the block of peas and tossed them into a steamer.  I added a few seasonings and mixed them into a bowl, poured myself a glass of tap water (I normally only drink bottled water as my well has a very high sulfur content) and sat down to "dinner."

Not only was I hungry that night, but I was utterly frustrated as well.  My surf session had gone badly.  A few days prior, my back had gone into a spasm, and though it had eased up some, and I stretched and yogaed before and during my session, even coming out of the water a few times to perform all the poses I knew on the sandy beach...my attempt at loosening the kink was futile. 

The surf was really powerful during this particular swell, pumping in from a large offshore storm.  Though surfers in much of the rest of the globe are quite used to such offshore groundswells (opposed to weaker "windswell" generated from more local storms) it is a rare treat for the East Coast of North American surfer.  Usually we only see such events during the hurricane season.  

There's a world of difference in power and surge during a true groundswell.  Not only do the waves travel more swiftly, they pack a heavier punch.  Prior to paddling out, I was quite stoked to have the opportunity to surf "real" waves.  Only my back spasm, my creaky knees, my lack of fitness, and...a really, really strong, swirling current that forced me to keep up almost constant paddling just to hold position in the lineup, all conspired against a good session.  Top that off with many of the waves being closeouts, and the recipe called for a thoroughly humiliating time in the water.  Oh, I got pounded alot, had some great wipeouts, and probably paddled a few miles against the current until my arms went all spaghetti...what I didn't get, was any good, or even decent rides.

I went home with my tail between my legs...and hungry.  Really, really hungry.

I was hungry because I hadn't eaten a meal all day.  The reason I hadn't eaten wasn't by choice.  When things are stable for me, I live mostly paycheck-to-paycheck.  I've accumulated an enormous amout of debt in the past few years, mostly due to life circumstance and astronomical medical expenses.  Coupled with the fact that--though I work two jobs, and between 50-60 hours a week, with alot of driving expenses (2-3 hours of daily commute)--my profession as a licensed nurse's aide barely pays more than minimum wage.  When any kind of major expense comes my way, it carries potentially catastrophic consequences for my life.

My car engine died a few weeks ago, while trying to drive home from work, nearly 35 miles from home, at midnight.  I sat in the dark almost an hour waiting for a tow-truck.  It cost me nearly $200 to get towed back home.  And the next day, the garage gave me the bad news: $3500 to replace the engine.  Never mind the fact that I also needed a rear brake job and at least one new tire, the car wasn't even worth that much!  It's a frikkin 2005 Kia Rio with 126k miles!  It always kills me when car mechanics just so casually break the news of how much your repairs will cost you.  As if we all just have hundreds, or in this case, a spare 3-4k just lying around for them to suck up. 

At the time I got this news, I had $157 in my checking account.  In addition to trying to calculate how I was going to pull off making a mortgage payment before the month was up, to stave off collection proceedings (I've already had my loan modified after the bank initiated foreclosure last year) I had many other bills and collectors who were asking for their piece of my ever shrinking pie...

Replacing this engine was a non-option; my only way out, was to finance a new (USED) vehicle.  After riding my bike for 45 minutes, I pulled into the lot of a "buy-here-pay-here" used car dealer.  The guy seemed friendly and honest enough and after an entire day on the telephone with my bank, my insurer, my employers, and my dear friend who loaned me the down payment cash, I drove away with a 10 yr old Subaru.  Transportation.  The means of getting to and from...work. 

I'd been struggling for quite some time (2yrs actually; but more acutely in the last few months) and for almost a month I'd been subsisting on Ramen noodles, pb+j sandwiches, and whatever food I could scavenge from the kitchen at the nursing home where I work.  Actually it was my co-workers who helped insure I got at least one "meal" a day by fixing up a plate of whatever was on the menu for the residents that night.  By the time my car died though, I was down to spoonfuls of peanut butter (no bread left) the last couple of packets of Ramen, and tea.  On the plus side, I have lost over 15 pounds! The "poverty-diet" however, is not one I would recommend. 

I am not good with money; never have been.  I like to think I have what I term: A healthy disrespect for finance and all it represents.  But no matter my philosophic sensibilities, the hard reality is, as I've learned the hard way, at least in this country, ya gotta play the game or you won't survive; it's rigged against us any other way.  So this experience has been a wake-up call.  I've got to learn how to more effectively budget the means I do have.  No longer can I so cavalierly spend with little regard to latter consequence.  Okay, so I don't make alot, that only means I gotta learn to live without...Not so easy when you grew up in a priveleged, white surburban way...

By the standards of Modern American living, I'm poor.  I live with debt, and I live in poverty.  I can't make ends meet.  I can pay my bills, just not all at the same time.  I can put gas in my car, if I just don't eat.  I can pay for a roof over my head, if I just don't heat.  Something's always sacrificed; I can't have it all...wake up call...

But...am I really poor?  While I was sitting in the car dealership, I picked up a magazine to peruse while they were busy prepping the car and putting together the paperwork.  It was a travel magazine and the first page I opened up to was a full page spread of an elderly gentleman in some African country.  Bald and gray, tattered suit, riding an old jalopy bicycle that was painted in the color of rust and dust, his possesions in plastic bags strapped to the rear fender riding one handed down a dusty dirt road, with the other hand and arm, cradling a chicken.  The look on the man's face was not of despair or misery; he looked rather serene actually, hint of a smile on his face...apparently just going about his normal daily routine...

What is wealth?  What is poverty?  Depends I guess on who you are, where you live, and what matters to you...One thing I learned through this experience: When you are down and out, there are those who will help you...and those who will kick you...life comes in waves; sometimes those waves are weak windswell, sometimes more powerful and dangerous groundswell...you gotta learn how to ride both... 









   

Dark Place

I know a dark place.  Dark and deep, beneath the sea.  I place I visited once, unvoluntarily held hostage there actually.  A place I don't ever want to revisit; a place that changed my entire outlook on my place in this universe.  The lesson I learned in my brief captivity, there in the dark deep, is: I. Don't. Matter.

It was a wave I suppose.  But more than the single wave that nearly ended me, my lingering haunt, is more with the place where that wave broke, where countless waves have broken, both before and after my time.

Fox Hill Point.  Unlike it's sister spot across the bay, Rye-on-the-Rocks, (often misnomed by local surfers as a point but in reality a rock reef,) Fox Hill, is a true point-break. A spot where swells first encounter a headland, then wrap long lines into a bay.  On really good days rides can approach 300 yards.  It breaks with power and force and it heaves and plunges on the outside take-off, then barrels and grinds over submerged rocks and boulders.  And unlike the mostly beach break spots that predominate the East Coast, Fox Hill can hold a really big swell, the biggest it can get around here. 

The day I almost drowned there, was the biggest, baddest swell I have ever surfed in New England.  The year was 1988.  The month was February.  About the coldest, gnarliest month of the year in these parts.  The water has usually bottomed out in the low thirties by February and when the nor'easters that generate winter swells would spiral off into the North Atlantic, frigid, howling northwesterlies would banshee in off the Canadian tundra.  When most of New England would be shoveling their driveways, or inside drinking hot cocoa, surfers (not a lot of them in those days) would be spastically contorted in their vehicles, frantically tugging into their wetsuits, engines running, heaters maxed and thermos mugs of hot liquids, gulped before the go-out. 

Surfers have traditionally embellished the small sized waves they surf, always saying it's bigger than it really was; three feet when it's barely thigh-high, or perhaps, "chest-high"...when measured to the chest of a ten year old.  But oddly, they conversely downplay the size of big waves they surf.  Go to Hawaii, and what you or I might look at and say is obviously twenty feet (the stacked height of two basketball nets) they would scoff at as being only 8-10 feet; basic rule of thumb being to halve (and then some,) the true size.  "Ya don't measure da wave by da front, brah, you gotta measure da back."  Silliness.  Somehow it seems more macho to diminish the wave's height if it is truly big. All I know is, I don't surf the back, but the front, or "face" of the wave.  And on this particular day at Fox Hill Point in New Hampshire, the faces were a solid basketball, hoop-and-a-half high; you do the math.  

I was in my surfing prime.  Peak condition both physically and with my surfing skills; I'd been surfing for 14 years.  I thought I knew it all, had experienced everything the East Coast surfer could experience.  I was about to be schooled...harshly.

I should have known better.  I didn't see anybody paddling out on shortboards or longboards that day.  Everyone was "gunned" up with 7'2"s, 7'6"s, and even 7'8"s.  It wasn't merely the size of the sets coming in, but the screaming offshore wind.  The biggest board I owned, my "big-wave" board was a 6'8," but I'd stupidly left it at home, not anticipating the magnitude of this swell.  This was in the days before buoy and internet reports and webcams.  Before cell phones even.  If you wanted an accurate surf check, you drove to the beach and checked it.  I'd seen the big red "L" (indicating a low-pressure system)on Joe Cupo's weather report the previous evening, but I never expected it to be anymore than maybe a foot or two overhead.  Driving by my local spot though, I found it was big, big, big...closed out whitewater way, way outside the usual lineup.  I should have turned the car right around and gone home to retrieve my 6'8;" better yet, I should have drove home and stayed there. I stupidly told myself I was gonna rip it up on my standard 6'2."

When I pulled up at the Fox Hill overlook I could see a handful of surfers already out.  I waited to watch a set; was stoked beyond measure when one rolled in.  Not only was it way, way overhead, but it was clean and perfect!  It surprised me though that most of the guys seemed to just be catching waves, setting their lines, and racing across the huge walls.  "They're only riding, not surfing the waves," I told myself.  I was gonna surf.  What I'd yet to fully learn and appreciate was that when waves increase in height, they also magnify in power. Exponentially. The other surfers were riding big boards mostly just so they could catch the waves.  They were rolling in fast and the stiff offshores blowing up the faces made them very difficult to gain the momentum to launch.

Woefully undergunned...woefully, woefully undergunned...I struggled for a good hour trying to get myself into a wave.  Everytime I stood up, thinking I had it, the wind kept pushing under my board, and blowing me back over the top behind it.  I was frustrated.  I kept watching the waves thundering down, just inside of me...from the back of the wave.  And I kept watching other surfers get incredible rides.  That whole day I never saw more than maybe 10 or 12 of them out in the lineup, and every one of them seemed to know what they were doing.  I'd surfed plenty of overhead days and I knew how to surf, but I didn't know diddly about big waves.  Whole 'nuther league when it gets to double overhead and beyond.  I wanted to cry...then I just got mad.  Really, really mad.

"Next set, no matter what, I'm catching one!" I inwardly screamed. 

Careful what you wish for in this life.  Spray blinding me, chin down, I pulled, and scratched and clawed my way over the crest, hopped up when I knew I had it, and then, felt the wind under my board...shit!  Only this time, instead of blowing over the back, the wind held me up, suspended for a few horrifying seconds in the lip as it began to throw...I had time to think: "Oh shit. Ohhhh shiiitt!" just as I free-fell into the biggest wave of my life. 

Surfers call it: "Going-over-the-falls," because the sensation is akin to those nuts who sometimes hurl over Niagra in wooden or metal barrels.  I fell with the lip until I impacted at the bottom; it felt like a belly-flop off a twenty-foot cliff.  Then...I plunged.  The lip walloped down on me with all the weight of a dumped load of felled lumber from a logging truck.  It did not feel good.

Surfers have an expression: "Only a surfer knows the feeling."  What they're referencing is the utter stoke one gets from riding a wave.  What no surfer can effectively relate, is what it's like to get "rag-dolled" underwater by a big wave.  Only a surfer who's been through it, knows that feeling as well.  It's not fun.  Few other experiences in life more clearly illustrate the relative powerlessness of human beings when matched against the power and fury of nature's forces.  Maybe an ant under the rushing force of a kitchen faucet, or a spider swirling down a toilet drain can relate, but imagine being clutched by a huge fist, and shaken, all your limbs torquing in contrary attitudes, then tossed haphazardly as if you were the die tumbling across the table in a Vegas craps game, swirled and hurled and twirled until you had no idea which was up, which was down, dark green water, and darker shadows passing before your vision, until the shadows overpower the green, and only the dark remains, and you keep tumbling, head over heels over head over heels over...

I'd been slammed under by big surf before.  Once you realize you're not going to die, it's not so bad.  You just try to relax and hold your breath...flow with it.  Eventually the force subsides, releases, and you drift up to the surface; sometimes it's almost a rush to feel that power.  But this was different.  It wasn't stopping. This wave kept tumbling me, kept pushing me under, sucking me up, then sucking me under again.  I worried about hitting bottom; it's all rocks and boulders at Fox Hill.  What if I hit my head and was knocked unconscious?  I tried to cover my skull with my forearms but the force kept wrenching my arms in different directions. 

What I didn't realize until after was that I was getting dragged underwater, along the length of the point!  When the wave wouldn't let go, I started to fight...kick and claw, even though I knew this would hasten the depletion of my oxygen.  But I couldn't just let it keep tumbling me!

Fighting was futile.  When you're in the grips of such a primal source of Nature's power, there is no fighting. I relaxed and flowed with it again; tried to conserve my air.

Eventually, the force did start to diminish but I had the weird sense of neutral buoyancy.  The water was so agitated that I was neither sinking or rising as I usually do with the aid of my wetsuit which is a natural flotation device.  I started to swim for the surface.  Only as I swam, instead of a growing light as I approached the surface, it all became darker around me.  That's when the first inklings of true panic manifested; I'd never experienced this before, didn't know what to do.  

When I hit something hard with my hands, I realized I'd become so disoriented that I'd swum straight into the bottom...I somersaulted, pushed off with my feet, and started swimming again.  But I was really deep.  And it was utterly dark around me.  Panic swelled.  I kept swimming, but it was slow going.  And I was about out of air.  I fought harder...used more air.  The surface wasn't coming...oh, dear God, this is it, I figured...  I was at my limit, no more O2 fumes, no more strength...I found myself making the conscious decision: "I'm taking a breath...if it's air, I live, if it's water, I die...

It was air.

I popped the surface and gulped...half a breath...then was slammed under again by the following wave.  Tumbled.  Tossed.  Rag-dolled.  I saw stars, just like in the cartoons, when I surfaced after that one...

Miraculously, my board was still with me; my leash hadn't snapped.  I hauled aboard and started paddling out of the path of the next wave.  I couldn't even feel my arms.  When I'd moved into deeper water, I laid there a few moments...  I'd come as close to my own death as I ever wanted to come, and I realized: I. Do. Not. Matter.  The wave that almost killed me, was just a wave.  Though I was so full of myself as a human being...Nature, the Ocean, that wave, did not care.  I was, I am, just a puny human being, inconsequential to the world around me, in the grand scheme.  It was, and remains, a humbling lesson. 

I did paddle back out that day, after that wave.  I knew if I didn't, I might never surf there, might never surf big waves again.  I sat for about two more hours, as darkness fell, as real stars started salting the darkening sky...  And I did catch a wave in; a half-size inbetweener just to get me to the shore, back to land. 

Big surf still scares me to this day.  I want to ride it, I still paddle out when it comes, I even shaped myself an 8 footer for when my own personal "Big Wednesday" should come again.  But it gives me the willies...each time I find myself underwater, tumbling, holding my breath, trying to relax in that deep dark place...