34 - a new day

… ‘power consists to a large extent in deciding what stories will be told.’ Women professionals looking for their foremothers’ stories find comparatively few published ones. And as Heilbrun notes, the women’s stories that have been published ‘are painful, the price [has been] high, the anxiety intense, because there is no script to follow… let alone any alternative stories.’ Actually, women seeking to combine family, love and work still lack anything resembling a script; no journey myth works either (Odysseus?). Each woman is still devising her own path on a far from level playing field, dodging unexpected paradoxes…..

—This Side of Doctoring: Reflections from Women in Medicine, Eliza Lo Chin

~~~

Marking it in my mind. April 2011, the month and year life took an unexpected turn. We’re set to move. We’ve hired Priority Moving—San Diego Movers and we’re on for next weekend. They’ll be able to handle both, all in one day. We’ll start with Camille’s duplex, then stop at my studio in La Jolla.

My “Upper Endoscopy” is a week after next. Not sure what will happen. The Barium Swallow study was a thumbs up, except for the Schatski’s ring. A stricture in the esophagus, the diameter there 14mm, the reason for my difficulty in swallowing. So if all’s well, I get put under, the gastroenterologist scopes, examines, sends down a balloon, the stricture is expanded, busted out, and I’m swallowing normal again. Camille didn’t seem to think it was a big deal, so I’m not worried. She’s going to be in a mandatory training at the Center on that day so I’ve got my buddy, The Dawg (REACH’s new, young and brilliant Info Services Director), scheduled to pick me up after the “procedure.”

I’ve become a regular in the UC San Diego Health System, ever so at ease around these folks: doctors, researchers, nurses, physician assistants, registration desk clerks, all part of the team delivering care. I stroll in with a countenance that appears to be affecting, and it has become somewhat amusing, not surprised anymore when I see the double take. If only they knew they were looking at a man traveling with death, always on his arm strolling along side, charming and lovely…. So, the Barium Swallow? I’m finishing up with the Upper GI Series, having a conversation with a very engaging radiologist, Natasha, and while her technician is resetting the machines, she reiterates that everything looks good except the stricture, that I’d have to follow up with my GI Doc, and then she says, “This might be inappropriate, but my god, there’s something in your smile, you’re giving something off.” And she’s kind of mirroring whatever it is I’m giving off, and I blush, thinking, “Well shit, what the hell is this? What does she see? I mean really?”

She had earlier talked about being tired, and that even though it was her husband who had taken the extended “maternity” leave, it still takes its toll on both parents, no matter how they share the challenge to care for and love the newborn. Natasha, a modern woman, an epitome of excellence, like my primary care physician Doc Triple M, who is so off the charts superlative that she has replaced my once revered dentist in Universityville as the “most incredible and sublime physician on the planet.” I’ve never called her by her first name, always Doctor Malone, or Doctor M, or Doc Triple M (Margaret Madeline Malone). She’s a wonder, and a resource, so flippin’ amazing, and so I asked her for some book recommendations, told her I was interested in learning about the challenges women have faced in a once male-dominated profession. She didn’t hesitate:

- On Call: A Doctor’s Days and Nights in Residency / Emily R. Transue, M.D.

- Becoming a Doctor: From Student to Specialist, Doctor-Writers Share Their Experiences / Edited by Lee Gutkind

- This Side of Doctoring: Reflections From Women in Medicine / Eliza Lo Chin

~~~

Women in medicine. I don’t know, I have to come back round to my first moment with Camille. It wasn’t “lust” or “sexual attraction” or even the thought of “romance” it was her warm-heartedness and kindness amidst the expertise. Her efficiency and excellence was hedged all round with a loving empathy, it’s something she does day to day, it’s who she is. She gave it off in that pivotal moment. And I saw what Natasha saw, and if we’re paying attention, it’s everywhere. You have to slow down, look, you’ll see it. We’re all mirrored in some way.

I know, I know, I’m obsessed with the “mirror” but shit, it’s true, and it’s weird and entrancing, and with Camille I lingered, and I couldn’t look away, and slowly, very simply, I fell for her.

~~~

Got hold of the books Doc Triple M recommended and I am reading one now, and I intend to give them to Camille as a gift. [And dearest, if you’re reading this, you’ll be charmed.] Yes, she knows about this novel-blog, she’s come in, read portions, we don’t talk about it, and she’s interested enough, but I don’t know,… it’s like what Joyce Carol Oates said in an essay on the sudden death of her husband, that he hadn’t been a reader of her novels, and in some weird way his access to her, and her imagination, was limited, not complete, yet okay. It’s a remarkable revelation and you have to think about it, mull it over. Those closest to us, those we’ve known and loved over a lifetime, the insight and sensation that there’s never a complete knowing, that dynamism reigns, that no matter how intimate you are or how long you’ve been with them, there’s no comprehensive understanding, no fixed conclusion, no, “They are THIS or THAT.” Of course you can point to so much that conjures the permanence of the sensations we have of our coworkers, family and intimates, but full-on, when push comes to shove, when you get in the deep down, there’s only a getting a sense of, you have to get comfortable with not knowing.

And Oates went further, and in an extraordinary admission says she and her husband didn’t share upsetting, demoralizing or tedious details of their day-to-day lives. It seems her view is that the stuff that challenges us, the demoralizing and upsetting stuff, is that which toughens us up. If you vent it or share it, you don’t benefit from the personal travail or suffering. You have to see and feel it, in depth, and you cannot be tempted to legitimate or blame, or rationalize it away. What she’s saying is we have to be present with all the shit that happens, that we have to enter some solitary place of contemplation where the elements and details come clear. And we can’t be afraid of not understanding, of not having answers. We can’t shy away from the unknown. She goes off about how this necessary solitude, the ground for her work as a writer, can be hazardous, unsettling and lonely, and yet there’s always a flipside, that this aloneness leads to privacy, autonomy and freedom.

Joyce Carol Oates and Raymond J. Smith, two distinct and engaging personalities, companions and intimates—alone together.

~~~

So, it’s Saturday morning. We’re having coffee at the Claire de Lune and she’s sad. She’s going to miss her neighborhood. To cheer her up I ask if she’d like to take a little “honeymoon” before the move. She’s busy, there’s no time to go anywhere, but that’s not what I have in mind. We’re talking “staycation” and I tell her about these marvelous cottages on the ocean side of Camino Del Mar when you first enter the village from the south.

A Friday and Saturday night at Les Artistes Inn, a funky and cozy B & B. It’s secluded, hidden away among the pine trees. I tell her she could do some surfing, that I’d love to see her on the water, that we could hang out and do nothing for two days, just reading and relaxing. And she went for it and I made the reservations. We’re on for the Van Gogh room. A king bed, skylights in an open-beam wooden ceiling, clawfoot tub with shower, and a flipping view of the Pacific.

It’s a new day, a do-over begins in the sweet and charming village of Del Mar.