"You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone."

~ Andrew Largeman, Garden State

This morning we went to Chenango Bridge for a walk-through of the new house. Until today I'd only ever seen it from the outside. I'm not really sure what I was expecting.

Of course, I had just downed a Starbucks doubleshot espresso on the way so I was able to remain very optimistic, but ...

The living room and dining area were carpeted in a hideous shade of grass green, and the matching drapes looked like they had come straight out of a Lemony Snicket book. But I was forced to admire them, because the owner (who had grown up there) thought they were the greatest thing ever, and had them especially cleaned before selling the house. Dry-cleaning the drapes alone cost him over $400. And it's a terrible waste because they will be the first thing to go -- I'd rather have newspapers over the windows, they are truly that ugly. They remind me of that monster on Sesame Street who lived in the garbage can. But, at least they are better than the curtains on every basement window, stamped with a pattern of the Kool logo.

And speaking of the basement... above the door to the basement is a little light like the kind you see outside television studios when they're filming something. Apparently the owner's father, who built the house, got really mad when anyone left the adjacent hallway door open while he was in the basement, because if he came out of the basement and opened the door it would hit the other door. So he installed the light, which is on whenever anyone's in the basement, so whoever is upstairs knows not to leave the adjacent door open. Seriously. When I saw that light and heard the story I wanted to burst out laughing.

This guy who built the house also tried to dig a bomb shelter in the backyard, until one of the walls collapsed and his wife yelled at him and made him fill in the hole. Which is why there is now a random concrete slab off the back of the house. Some porch.

The bathroom upstairs is really tiny and built into the back dormer, and has no shower because the owner's parents "never took showers." Instead they built a shower for him set into the wall of what used to be his room. Just a random shower not connected to the bathroom at all. And speaking of, this bedroom is completely lined with wood floor to ceiling, no paint or wallpaper anywhere, so we've been referring to it as "the wood room". It's really weird because none of the other bedrooms are like that, it's just so random.

And the kitchen countertops are bright blue. Like, blogger blue.

Then there's the fireplace. A family of raccoons had been living in the chimney until a week ago when the people came home and discovered them, and the mother and 3 of the babies climbed out. There's still one baby left, that's apparently too small to climb out of the chimney yet, and the mother keeps bringing it food. But there's nothing to be done yet, because the piece won't come off the bottom of the chimney so no one can open it up to get the raccoon out. And the regular-sized ladder doesn't reach to the top of the chimney. So all they can do for now is wait and see if it gets out on it's own.

Have you ever spent some weeks looking for yourself, only to turn around and realize that you've been there all the time but now everyone else has gone?

I've done it again.

It's like searching everywhere for a pair of glasses that have been right on top of your head, and when you finally notice and put them on, you wonder why you ended up here, as if you'd forgotten you knew your way by heart because in your panic you thought you relied on the glasses. And now you're here for absolutely no reason. And it took so long to find the glasses that now you can't remember what it was you needed them for, no matter how pressing it had seemed in the moment.

I feel very, very alone.

Today while browsing the latest headlines, I noticed an article on the BBC news about the House of Lords rejecting a law which "would have removed the threat of prosecution from those who go abroad to help an 'assisted suicide'". So because assisted suicide for the terminally ill is illegal in the UK, if a person were to travel to, say, the Swiss clinic Dignitas to die, their spouse could not accompany them or they would risk prosecution under the Suicide Act.

All this controversy about physician assisted suicide etc. etc. really makes me angry. In my opinion, it's almost ridiculous. It's hard for me to comprehend how government can possibly have this much say over an individual's rights, and I don't know how people stand for it.

Assisted suicide is illegal in the U.S. as well except for in Oregon and Washington, and even in those states there are strict laws concerning when this can be legal. How can the state place these kind of limits on personal liberty? Isn't the choice concerning time and circumstance of death a highly personal matter, and shouldn't we each have the right to make those sorts of decisions? When one is terminally ill and death is imminent, why can't one have the choice to die with dignity? Those opposing PAS talk about the effect it has on family and friends. What is the effect on family and friends who watch their loved one waste away, or discover them dead in much worse circumstances than the person would have chose ... or those who go tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt to keep their loved one alive, when the last thing that person wants is be kept alive to suffer through another day? What if said person doesn't even recognize his or her family, and isn't really even aware that he or she is alive? Who are we to lock anyone into that sort of half-existence?

True compassion would require that assisted suicide become legal. Of course it could be abused, like any law in the legal system. But the bottom line is that when we are already dying, and our quality of life is hastily declining, we should have every right to avoid needless suffering and choose a peaceful, painless death. I don't see how any argument can really be made against this. Of course it is hard on families. Death is never easy to deal with. But isn't it easier to know that your loved one has died in the time and place they wanted, with everything in order and their wits about them, than to have it on your conscience that you fought for another few weeks or months that they never wanted and couldn't enjoy? And after all, if it were you, what would you want?

I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.

~ Clarissa Vaughn

Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.

~ Virginia Woolf

It would be wonderful to say you regretted it. It would be easy. But what does it mean? What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. There it is. No one's going to forgive me. It was death. I chose life.

~Laura Brown

I wrote this poem today, inspired by Red, the poem by Ted Hughes that I recently posted. I know it's pretty similar in concept, and the first lines are practically identical, but I don't think it's necessarily considered plagiarism. I hope not. Because I sort of like the way it turned out.


Yellow


Yellow was your color.
Yellow
Was the thing you made hold onto you,

Wound around your finger.

You always liked the way honey
Wouldn't show you your reflection,
Were fond of the way caramels
Melted against glass.

You
Were yellow.
Mornings, the way
Roman shades filtered sunlight

And at night, the lantern
Burning scrolls of fog.
They came to you like moths
You, death with a halo

Lifting buttercups to your chin.

I remember
Sand in your shoes
And the letters you cut out of
The yellow wallpaper.

Did you ever tire of admiring
How amber meant forever
To the insect caught inside?

I wanted you to see
The glory of red,
The innocence of white,
The mystery of blue.

But you wrapped yellow around your finger
Again, twice,
Like marriage

And rubbed lemons over your freckles,
Because you were tired
Of connecting the dots.