PAIN FOR A DAUGHTER

Blind with love, my daughter
has cried nightly for horses,
those long-necked marchers and churners
that she has mastered, any and all,
reigning them in like a circus hand --
the excitable muscles and the ripe neck;
tending this summer, a pony and a foal.
She who is too squeamish to pull
a thorn from the dog’s paw,
watched her pony blossom with distemper,
the underside of the jaw swelling
like an enormous grape.
Gritting her teeth with love,
she drained the boil and scoured it
with hydrogen peroxide until pus
ran like milk on the barn floor

Blind with loss all winter,
in dungarees, a ski jacket and a hard hat,
she visits the neighbors’ stable,
our acreage not zoned for barns;
they who own the flaming horses
and the swan-whipped thoroughbred
that she tugs at and cajoles,
thinking it will burn like a furnace
under her small-hipped English seat.

Blind with pain she limps home
the thoroughbred has stood on her foot.
He rested there like a building.
He grew into her foot until they were one.
The marks of the horseshoe printed
into her flesh, the tips of her toes
ripped off like pieces of leather,
three toenails swirled like shells
and left to float in blood in her riding boot.

Blind with fear, she sits on the toilet,
her foot balanced over the washbasin,
her father, hydrogen peroxide in hand,
performing the rites of the cleansing.
She bites on a towel, sucked in breath,
sucked in and arched against the pain,
her eyes glancing off me where
I stand at the door, eyes locked
on the ceiling, eyes of a stranger,
and then she cries...
Oh my God, help me!
Where a child would have cried Mama!
Where a child would have believed Mama!
she bit the towel and called on God
and I saw her life stretch out...
I saw her torn in childbirth,
and I saw her, at that moment,
in her own death and I knew that she
knew.

So I've been gaining some progress on moving in to Mountainview (key word here: "some"). I never realized how much stuff there was in the other house, and how much work it would be to find places for all the things I didn't decide to get rid of. Luckily, I've gone for the keep-most-of-everything-in-boxes-in-the-cellar method, and the house isn't too cluttered as of now. I've got a lot of decorating done in my room, which I figured was the best place to start because it's out of the way of everyone else and there's no painting or wall-papering to be done.

Because the walls and floor are all wood panelling, it's already got a nice warm aura about it, so I kept the color palette toned down and rich. I found a gorgeous coverlet at Moghul Gallery on ebay -- it's a quilt made of vintage Indian saris in shades of bottle green, a burgundy/wine color, and some teal blue, embroidered in gold thread with beadwork. It's very elaborate so I made it the centerpiece of the room and worked around it, bringing in the colors to other areas and complimenting it as best I could. I've got a Chinese painted parasol in the far corner, which ties in the white of the filing cabinet and nightstand, and white muslin curtains to brighten the window area. I haven't brought out all the books I want on the shelves yet, but I did fill in the empty spots with some of my favorite earth-toned pottery pieces, a green carved incense burner, and a collection of 18th-century glass bottles in clear, green, and blue that were found around our old house. To brighten it up I also draped one of the shelves with the yellow dupatta Nadia brought me from Pakistan. There was no lighting other than the lamp I had on my nightstand, so just today I added a string of Chinese lanterns across the ceiling slant.

It's looking better, but there's still a lot to do. I need:

• bulletin board on wall next to filing cabinet, so I can keep writing in plain sight for revisions
• to make prints for French memo board and hang it on the wall
• full-length mirror for the back of my door
• some kind of pictures or flat decorations for my closet doors
• CD rack
• rug
• floor cushions
• backrest in dark green or maroon
• chair for corner by closet and window
• jewelry box for countertop by shower, and
• a more decorative mirror
• shower caddy

"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