a rough, calloused hand

I know that my father is very sick because his room is cluttered with machines that click, hum, and beep.

On Thursday, my father and I spent a good day discussing family, politics, and the Lewis and Clark expedition. Our conversation was interrupted frequently – by the nurse who routinely measured his blood pressure and by the respiratory therapist who administered periodic breathing treatments – but it was a satisfying conversation. Talking is what dad and I do best. Its is how we relate to one another. I’ve been chatting with him at least once a day by telephone for years. We discuss life, politics, history, anything really.

Our conversation was very much like hundreds we have shared in the past despite our surroundings. His finger was hooked up to an oxygen monitor, his arm a drug infusion pump, and he wore a small oxygen mask connected to a spigot on the wall by a length of clear surgical tubing. The infusion pump delivered medicine to him via a PICC line, a port that runs from his arm directly to his heart. His oxygen mask is light and does not prevent him from speaking clearly. It is surprising how little the hospital intruded into the intimacy of a private conversation between father and son.

Dad’s voice is strong. His wit and humor are intact. He is dad. As we talk about the “undaunted courage” of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Dad greatly admires these men and considers them American heroes. But it is the man in the hospital bed who I admire. I marvel at the courage with which he faces his illness. Dad’s ability to be himself gave me strength. I was aware of the irony that I was taking comfort from him not the other way around. Even at 41 years old, even in the ICU, I look to dad for reassurance. I was not disappointed. In typical Cravens fashion, Dad had a plan. We brainstormed what he will need for his return home from the hospital. He predicts that he will be too weak to walk unaided and reasons that he will need ramps, rails, a wheel chair at home. He tells me how to build the ramp, what equipment we can jury-rig (dad could build a lunar lander with a little bailing wire and an old lawn mower motor) and what will need to be purchased. Dad is still in charge. There is much hope in the room. There is talk of his coming home. I believe that it will happen and soon.

His condition suddenly worsened that evening. He coded that night. Though he was resuscitated by means of CPR and a defibrillator, he revived to very different circumstances. Now he was surrounded by three infusion pumps, each one delivering three or four different drugs, a ventilator, and two monitors. The vent delivers life-sustaining oxygen by means of a tube inserted through the esophagus into the lungs. The tube is so uncomfortable that a patient receiving mechanical ventilation must be sedated. One of the infusion pumps carefully titrates a mixture of fentanyl and propofol into his superior vena cava in order to maintain him in a constant state of conscious sedation – i.e. he will respond if roused by touch or voice but otherwise will float just below consciousness. The sedation means that I cannot speak to him. The tube means that he cannot speak to me, though he sometimes tries. Dad can’t talk to me. This fact is impossible to bear, a glimpse into the inevitable.

An ICU doctor is deeply distrustful of the patient’s body. This makes sense because, after all, the patient would not be in intensive care unless his body was failing. The sicker the patient, the more trust the doctor places in technology and the less in the flesh. Dad’s doctors do not trust his failing body. The infusion pumps impose an artificial sleep. The ventilator breathes for him, carefully calibrating and recording each breath. His heart is watched suspiciously like a wayward child. It is left to beat on its own for now but a machine stands ready to take this task over if necessary.

My experience of dad is now completely mediated by the potent medicine that sustains him. The only way to connect with him is to hold his hand, and even that is made difficult by straps and tubes. I try to memorize everything about the hand and the tactile experience of holding it because it is the only bit of dad left. If I lose him, the hand will be my last memory of dad. His hand is warm because his heart still beats. It is thick, meaty still even though the rest of him has atrophied. Dad used to be six feet, two inches tall. Always a source of pride for both him and me. He told me recently that he is barely six feet now due to the collapse of his spine. Though he is seventy-five, his hand is still rough and callused by work. They are hands that chop and carry wood. They labored his entire adult life to provide home and safety to his children. They protect, reassure, and caress.

terrible twos

William is delightfully two. Not terrible. He is almost always a jolly little boy. His sister requires a little more maintenance but, as long as everyone acknowledges her place at the top of the food chain, which as it turns out is her happy place as well. I am not smug. Not at all. In fact, I am just a little bit nervous that a storm is coming.

I may have felt the first stiff gust of that storm the other day. I am not sure that this incident was as a bona fide tantrum because William was sick with an ear infection. Everyone deserves some slack when they are sick, especially if they are very small and have an ear ache.

Will had slept like a champ that night. Both he and his sister go to sleep at 7 p.m. without a fuss and generally sleep until at least 6:30 the next morning. He woke up in an excellent mood and then about an hour into the morning he just melted down.

He wanted me to pick him up. When I picked him up he wanted to lie down. Once we were down, he wanted back up. He wanted his diaper off, then back on when it was off, then off when I tried to put it on. In the end it stayed off.

Meanwhile, Claire camped out on my bedroom floor, head on her blankie, and just looked at us like we were crazy. Not an unusual look for Claire. She is cut from altogether better cloth. Eventually, she’d had enough and started to cry herself. Perfectly understandable when you are very small and your twin brother has been hogging all the parental attention for forever and ever.

I left William crying on my bed and carried her down stairs to watch “doggies” with Chris. Claire was instantly transported to her happy place. It turns out that a Disney addiction has its advantages. (See the previous post).

I returned to find William standing on the edge of my bed, considerately peeing over the side onto the floor. No need to change the sheets. Whatever else you may say about William, that boy has range. Props. Bladder empty, he was finally prepared to lie down with daddy to cuddle. After 15 minutes of snuggling on my chest, he was good as new.

I recounted this story to some friends, each of whom is parent to older children. “The terrible twos can be tough,” said one. Nods all around. “You know, I found the troublesome threes to be worse,” said another. More nods and general agreement that trouble really begins to brew in the third year. A daddy speaks up, “If you ask me, its the f*ing fours that kill you.” Much rueful laughter.

He was joking, right?

doggies anonymous

My little girl is an addict. Swear. My dad bought the twins their first Disney movies for Christmas – 101 Dalmatians and the Jungle Book. Both excellent, classic choices. I prefer the older Disney movies because the new ones are so busy and tend to have some pretty adult content that is not appropriate for children in this father’s humble opinion. For example, what does Walt have against mothers and why does he insist on killing them off? I mean really. In the first three minutes of Finding Nemo, Disney kills off Mom and 99 of her children. That’s not funny, that’s mass murder. Don’t get me started on Bambi. Not nice.

Anyway, Claire has it bad. She starts begging to “watch doggies” immediately upon waking. I need my coffee in the morning but I can generally take a shower and brush my teeth without jonesing. I don’t really understand the addiction. Neither she nor William watched anything on the television until after their second birthday – no computer, no movies, no Thomas the Tank Engine. I don’t have cable or even rabbit ears for that matter. We didn’t even own any Disney movies until Christmas. Now, all of the sudden, my daughter’s imagination is completely circumscribed by 79 minutes of Disney animation.

My current strategy (other than saying “no” 90 percent of the time, which gets a little bit tedious) is to try to expand her imaginative horizons by introducing her to other “doggie” related activities – Whitey’s pets, doggie books, doggie toys, etc. So whenever she finds herself deep in the thrall of Dalmatian cravings, I can distract her by reading the “doggie book”. I guess this is akin to chewing gum as a distraction from cigarette cravings.

We’ll see how it works. In the meantime, I will be going slowly mad as the “Cruella Deville” song plays endlessly in my mind – “Cruella Deville, Cruella Deville, If she doesn’t scare you no evil thing will …”

hare hare, hare krishna

I spent a lovely weekend with a lovely woman in the Bay Area. I lived nearly 18 years in that place. I learned my craft there, how to be a friend, a father, and a lover. I lived there so long that its streets, shops, and restaurants evoke not just memories but layers of memories. Strolling through its streets, particularly with someone special to me, was more an archeological excavation of my psyche than a simple weekend away.

The weekend was a mixture of nostalgia for the life that I used to lead there and a feeling of hopeful anticipation that the future will exceed the past. It is particularly ironic that in this weekend so heavily burdened by ties to the past and future, I experienced a moment of sublime presence in the now.

I already felt blessed that the day was clear and bright. A big spender, I bought us slices of Blondies for lunch and we found a warm patch of sun on the steps of the ASUC to eat them. Man that pizza is good.

With a belly full of melted cheese, I lay back against my companion and closed my eyes. The concrete and glass ASUC building is no Bodhi tree. I was angling more for a little nap than a glimpse of nirvana but sometimes the sublime can emerge unbidden from unlikely circumstances.

It was good. My head resting in the lap of a fantastic woman. The sun splaying across me unevenly – warming me just enough to make the cold breeze enjoyable. The sounds of Berkeley buzzing vaguely in the background.

Then the Hare Krishnas came. Drumming. Chanting. These are not your mother’s Hare Krishnas. Although some were in robes of Krishna Peach, most were in street clothes. Their ages ranged from late 60’s to four years old. But the chanting was the same as it has always been since the His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada gave birth to the movement before I was born. The hypnotic chanting, the rhythmic drums, the dancing belled feet pushed an already beautiful moment into the sublime. For a few lovely minutes, I felt myself melt – first into my companion, then into Berkeley in all its wacky glory, and then into the froth of experience.

dissolute

My new year’s resolution for 2009 is to become dissolute. Okay, you are right, not dissolute in the webster’s sense of the word but in the sense that I am resolved to allow my stony id to dissolve into formless experience.

Corsons Inlet by A.R. Ammons is my favorite poem. It is more of a manifesto than a poem. My new year’s resolution is live this poem until its words give up their full meaning, at which point I will no doubt vanish into nirvana in a puff of enlightened smoke.

Here is the poem that is my roadmap for 2009. I wish that I had written it or even fully understood it. It gives me great pleasure to share it with you:

Corsons Inlet by A.R. Ammons

I went for a walk over the dunes again this morning
to the sea,
then turned right along
the surf
rounded a naked headland
and returned
along the inlet shore:

it was muggy sunny, the wind from the sea steady and high,
crisp in the running sand,
some breakthroughs of sun
but after a bit

continuous overcast:

the walk liberating, I was released from forms,
from the perpendiculars,
straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds
of thought
into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends
of sight:

I allow myself eddies of meaning:
yield to a direction of significance
running
like a stream through the geography of my work:
you can find
in my sayings
swerves of action
like the inlet’s cutting edge:
there are dunes of motion,
organizations of grass, white sandy paths of remembrance
in the overall wandering of mirroring mind:

but Overall is beyond me: is the sum of these events
I cannot draw, the ledger I cannot keep, the accounting
beyond the account:

in nature there are few sharp lines: there are areas of
primrose
more or less dispersed;
disorderly orders of bayberry; between the rows
of dunes
irregular swamps of reeds
though not reeds alone, but grass bayberry, yarrow, all . . .
predominantly reeds:

I have reached no conclusions, have erected no boundaries,
shutting out and shutting in, separating inside
from outside: I have
drawn no lines:
as

manifold events of sand
change the dune’s shape that will not be the same shape
tomorrow,

so I am willing to go along, to accept
the becoming
thought, to stake off no beginnings or ends establish
no walls:

by transitions the land falls from grassy dunes to creek
to undercreek: but there are no lines though
change in that transition is clear
as any sharpness: but “sharpness” spread out,
allowed to occur over a wider range
than mental lines can keep:

the moon was full last night: today, low tide was low:
black shoals of mussels exposed to the risk
of air
and, earlier, of sun,
waved in and out with the waterline, waterline inexact,
caught always in the event of change:
a young mottled gull stood free on the shoals
and ate
to vomiting: another gull, squawking possession, cracked a crab,
picked out the entrails, swallowed the soft-shelled legs, a ruddy
turnstone running in to snatch leftover bits:

risk is full: every living thing in
siege: the demand is life, to keep life: the small
white blacklegged egret, how beautiful, quietly stalks and spears
the shallows, darts to shore
to stab —- what? I couldn’t
see against the black mudflats—a frightened
fiddler crab?

the news to my left over the dunes and
reeds and bayberry clumps was
fall: thousands of tree swallows
gathering for flight:
an order held
in constant change: a congregation
rich with entropy: nevertheless, separable, noticeable
as one event,
not chaos: preparations for
flight from winter,
cheet, cheet, cheet, cheet, wings rifling the green clumps
beaks
at the bayberries
a perception full of wind, flight, curve,
sound:
the possibility of rule as the sum of rulelessness:
the “field” of action
with moving, incalculable center:

in the smaller view, order tight with shape:
blue tiny flowers on a leafless weed: carapace of crab:
snail shell:
pulsations of order
in the bellies of minnows: orders swallowed,
broken down, transferred through membranes
to strengthen larger orders: but in the large view, no
lines or changeless shapes: the working in and out, together
and against, of millions of events: this,
so that I make
no form of
formlessness:

orders as summaries, as outcomes of actions override
or in some way result, not predictably (seeing me gain
the top of a dune,
the swallows
could take flight—some other fields of bayberry
could enter fall
berryless) and there is serenity:

no arranged terror: no forcing of image, plan,
or thought:
no propaganda, no humbling of reality to precept:

terror pervades but is not arranged, all possibilities
of escape open: no route shut, except in
the sudden loss of all routes:

I see narrow orders, limited tightness, but will
not run to that easy victory:
still around the looser, wider forces work:
I will try
to fasten into order enlarging grasps of disorder, widening
scope, but enjoying the freedom that
Scope eludes my grasp, that there is no finality of vision,
that I have perceived nothing completely,
that tomorrow a new walk is a new walk.

blank pages

This year is the twins third Christmas. At two years old, this is probably the first one that they will have any chance of remembering to their psychoanalysts. At some point in the distant future, God willing, they will tell stories of Christmases past to their spouses and their children. Some of these stories will be comic, some tender, and perhaps some sad. These future traditions will bind us all to one another as a family. But for now at least, they are blank pages. The Christmas traditions that they will tell of so fondly have not yet been written. Christmas present will be etched into their memories as a tradition of Christmas past. I am authoring those future Christmas stories now.

Some traditions are easily achieved. I bought wonderful needlepoint stockings embroidered with their names. Claire’s has an exquisite little angel on it. William has a dreaming boy, sleeping with an expression almost as sweet and innocent as his. When I chose these particular stockings, I saw dozens of future Christmases in my mind in which they cherished them and would not replace them even though they had become faded and worn. Perhaps Williams’ will bear wounds from the new puppy that we will one day have. Or perhaps Claire’s will be singed from that time that we tried to hang them over the fire place.

Some traditions take more work. I’ve been learning to sing Christmas carols (badly) and play them (equally badly) on my guitar. I am trying to teach the twins to yell out “Christmas” when we get to that point in “We wish you a merry CHRISTMAS …” by this Thursday. Chris sings the funny harmony parts to Rudolf the Red Nosed Raindeer – I have forbidden Chris from singing the “batman smells” version. I calculate that I have about 20 years to practice my caroling before one of the twins brings a boyfriend / girlfriend home for Christmas. I imagine that future Christmas with crystal clarity. We will all be gathered around the fire place, drinking eggnog and singing. Claire will be acting like a grown up even though she still feels like daddy’s little girl at Christmas time. William will be nervous to sing in front of his young love but will be proud to bring her into the warmth of our traditions. And by that time, I will play my axe like Jimmy Hendrix.

Some traditions will arise through serendipity. Perhaps the prime rib that we are serving for Christmas dinner this year will become a life long tradition. I am open to the new traditions that will come by chance over the years. There are so many possibilities, so many ways to fill those blank pages with traditions of warmth and love.

come with daddy?

William has recently started to display a little separation anxiety when I drop the twins off at Elisabeth’s on Wednesday mornings.  He refuses to let go of my neck.  “Daddy come,” he asks plaintively when I explain that I have to go to work. He cries when I pry his little arms away.  My heart breaks every time I have to leave him.

paisan

Mornings at our house run like the Sodor Railway.  Everyone is very useful, and we generally run on time.  At least in theory.

I first realized that this particular morning had jumped the track when Claire began yelling for her brother insistently in Italian “Paisan, paisan, PAISAN.”  I was a little confused at first.  For one thing, Claire doesn’t know Italian.  For another, William was all the way across the room playing with legos and minding his own business.  I hadn’t had my coffee yet.  

Eventually, my slow brain and Claire’s toddler tongue synced up.  It turned out that my little princess was not a linguistic prodigy after all.  “Play sand” she insisted in English.  This time she pointed at the sandbox, helping her idiot father to get the picture.  “Noooo,” was the only sensible response.  I already had both toddlers fed, changed, dressed, and ready to head out the door for mommy’s house.

If she knew how to stomp her feet she would have done it then.  Instead, she assumed that I still listening in Italian, and ran to the sliding glass door.  “Play Sand, plasand, paisan.”  Strident now.  She speaks in triplets.  She speaks in tongues.  No matter.  Her body language made it clear that she was not getting into my car without a fight.

Now, I am not above spoiling my little girl.  It is my right as a daddy.  My girl sees a baby bear in the store that she wants, she has a better than even chance of coming home with it.  She wants another story before bed, she gets it.  But my back was up against the wall.  She was already dressed.  I was dressed in a suit.  I had to get to work to do a witness interview.  Plus it was cold and wet outside.  There was no way it could happen.  No way.  No, no, nope. I had to get her into the car.

Desperate times, right?  I did what every other sensible daddy would do – I threw mommy under the bus and didn’t look back.  “Mommy has a sand box,” I explained.  Claire looked doubtful, guessing rightly that she stood a much better chance convincing daddy to let her play in the cold, wet, sand.  “I will tell mommy that you want to play in the sandbox when we get there.”  I was hopeful that I was getting through to her.  “Peas” she corrected me.  I nodded, “I will ask mommy to PLEASE let you play in the sandbox.”  She nodded and went happily to my car.

moments of authorship

I have devoted much of my free time to writing over the past year.   Writing is an activity that I enjoy intensely.   Finding just the right word, arriving at the perfect voice for a viewpoint character, charting the twisted path of my characters’ lives – these moments are exhilerating.   Everytime.    I take authorship very seriously.   Words matter.  They have power.   Good writing makes the world better.  I honestly believe that. 

I have recently come to think of authorship more as a philosophy than a hobby.   I write with intense concentration and sharp focus.   This is appropriate when wielding power.   A swoop of the mouse and a click on the keyboard and an entire city is decimated.   Enemies become lovers just as effortlessly.  The author enjoys fabulous freedom of action.   

How much more this philosophy applies to everyday life.  I am the author of my own life.  Living a moment creates a narrative in precisely the same way as writing fiction.  Words have power.  Words uttered harshly characterize the protagonist.   Tenderness and passion twine a love story through the main plot.  This is no less true of life than it is of fiction.

I sometimes feel that I have more freedom to create as an author than I do in my own life.   But this is not true.   One writes and lives in the present moment.  Each moment is an act of authorship unfettered by past and future.  The freedom is real.

indoor park

The twins love the park.  Its loves them back most of the time but is a temperamental and moody companion.  One minute its all excitement and sand, the next minute skinned knees and tears.  Recently, though, the park has been a relentless heart-breaker — cold and uninviting.  The twins, especially Claire, do not appreciate this seasonal interruption in their ongoing relationship with the park.

Fortunately Daddy discovered that they build little heated, indoor play areas in fast food restaurants.  Who knew?  Our favorite “indoor park” is Chick-fil-a.  Pretty clean.  Only one way in and out.  A cool cow comes around now and then.  Bonus.  Claire talks about the cow constantly.  McDonald’s by our place is also pretty good.   Not quite as new or as clean but pretty good.  Bottom line — the indoor park is a big hit.

Claire loves the indoor park and asks for it every time we get in the car.  Will enjoys it but is not as brave as Claire.  She leads him by the hand up the stairs to the slide.  They come tumbling down with ear-to-ear gleeful smiles and squeals of unrestrained delight.   Its a huge kick watching them.  Every once in a while Will gets distracted from this exhilerating circuit and tries to wander off to play with the other toys.  Claire patiently collects him and leads him back to the slide.   I have a feeling that this will be the pattern their whole life.   Claire will make sure that William stays on task.   William will make sure that Claire laughs. 

I generally get lots of comments on the twins.  Mostly its the usual, “they are so adorable”.  Moms and grandmothers tend to comment how “brave” a daddy I am to take them both by myself.  It is not actually all that difficult but I do appreciate the praise.  Good for the ego.

Its not all fun and games though. 

This weekend we went to McDonald’s for breakfast and a half hour of screaming fun.  Claire insisted that I accompany them for three trips through the play structure.  It is just barely big enough to fit me and not with comfort.  I go because I cannot resist her when she says “please daddy” and because I want to be the sort of fun dad that goes up in the play structure. 

It was going pretty well until we took a break for breakfast.  I handled the two of them expertly.  Claire was on my lap.  Will sat across from us.  I managed to make sure they both ate, didn’t make a mess, etc.  Superdad.  I was sure that the moms in the room were impressed.  When they both wanted milk at the same time, I knew that I needed to put on my best game.  I held Claire on my lap and her cup in my left hand while I leaned over the table and held William’s cup with my right hand.  Superdad had it all under control.  My coffee was alone and neglected in the middle of the table, safely out of reach of both twins.  I needed some coffee but without a free hand it wasn’t going to happen.  I could have managed the milk thing all day.  The problem actually came when Claire set her milk aside.  I tried to feed her with my left hand while still leaning over the table to hold William’s cup with my right.  Some how I managed to knock over Claire’s milk.  Then reacting too late, I reflexively pulled my right had back from William knocking over my coffee.  The trifecta came when William picked up his cup and deliberately dumped it out on the floor.  The laughter started in the back left hand corner of the room and swept forward from there.  Ultimately ripples of laughter involved the entire restaurant and peaked when William picked up his cup and dumped what little was left out in an encore performance.

Oh boy.