Floods

I grew up in the Red River Valley of the North, that part of Minnesota and North Dakota that is about 200 miles long and 50 miles wide. The valley itself is actually the bottom of prehistoric Lake Agassiz, the remnant of which is Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. The river actually flows north (hence the name of this blog, by the way, "Run North ...") The land is so flat, the drop per miles is only inches, and the southern valley thaws before the northern valley, so there are floods. The water spreads like a blanket, seeping east and west, dissolving snow like sugar, lapping at the top of dikes.

The most recent record flood was in 2009, but the big deal flood was in 1997, when downtown Grand Forks, North Dakota was inundated. Local newspaper, The Grand Forks Herald, kept reporting from their downtown office and produced a paper daily until the building caught fire. After the waters receded they published a book called "Come Hell and High Water" because, of course, they had had their fill of both.

What I remember of flooding is primarily the one in 1978, when the junior and senior boys were released from school to help sandbag around the Two Rivers, as well as at family farms closer to the Red. We lived about four miles from the River, but I could see the water half a mile away from my west-facing bedroom window. To me, Spring thaw and flooding was a novelty that was occasion to drag the old row boat out of the garage, make sure it didn't leak too much, and then set out across the coulie just across the driveway. It wasn't really flood water; it was just full of snow melt that was waiting for the still frozen ground to give in. I regarded it as a terrific occasion to goof off in a boat.

Water Everywhere - But Here

I attended my second water-related workshop in two weeks last night. Last week I sat through a 2-hour Water Wise Workshop coordinated by the Coachella Valley Water District. Typically, the workshop runs all day, but they condensed it to reach more people.

Here in the CV, there seems to be a preoccupation with golf courses, which, as we all know, use an astounding amount of water. Considering that California no longer has enough water to sustain continued development and still tend to agricultural needs, I can't help but think the whole golf course thing is absurd. I have nothing against golf - I was a champion cart-driver-beer-hander-outer-cigar-smoker gal. Not much good with the clubs. Yet I can't help but look around and want to shake people.

When I moved here in 2005, I spoke to a friend about this. She, too, had relocated from KC (in fact, she was the one who insisted that I meet my now ex-husband). I mentioned the whole water and golf course thing to her, and she responded with, "No, no, no. I was just at a water district meeting a few weeks ago and they said we have plenty of water for hundreds of years." Hm. Funny. Then why is everyone talking about water conservation now if we have plenty for hundreds of years? Maybe because we don't.

Or maybe we do. But the consequence of continuing to draw on the aquifer is becoming apparent. The level has dropped far more quickly than replenishing can take place. And once it's gone, it's gone. Period. Even with all of the recharging ponds that are in place throughout the valley, if the water doesn't get into the ground quickly enough to keep the aquifer level constant, the land subsides. That means that it will not rehydrate. Essentially, it is possible to desertify a desert.

My response to my friend when she told me that there was plenty of water was to refer to the then-current drought conditions. Her response? "Well, shit, Kimbel. It's a desert!"

It sure is.

The prize for stupidity yesterday: During the Q & A portion of the presentation last night, a gentleman asked why these states who have plenty of water don't put in pipeline and send water to us here in California? Like all those people in the Midwest. They've got too much water right now. ( ummmm - snow melt? flooding? Spring? Natural phenomena?) He said, "Well, I'm from Texas and we're a huge oil producer but we pipe it everywhere." Could someone please explain to the gentleman that it's not quite the same thing? Happily, another man shared the information that the states in the Great Lakes Basin voted to prohibit piping water out of state. Hooray! Another point for sanity!

If I sound peeved, it's because I am. Few things infuriate me like stupidity - and I find stupidity about the environment, especially willful ignorance, inexcusable. At least the guy was at the lecture last night and perhaps learned something.

By the way - in California, 70% of all water goes to irrigation. And that's not just agricultural irrigation. That's keeping our golf courses green.

OK. I'm over myself for the night.

Stay hydrated.

Brother's Days

Last week I spent four days/five nights in San Antonio, Texas. For those of you who have been following along at home, you’ll recall that I was in San Antonio this summer on my Western States Tour 2010 (“Remembering the Alamo” and “El Paseo del Rio”).

The occasion that brought me back to SA was the celebration of a family birthday – my brother’s 50^th. His actual birthday was on February 14, Valentine’s Day. (Yes, he always got the coolest cakes.) But there’s more to do and see in SA than where he lives, so all of us converged on the city for a few days, renting a house, cooking, seeing the sites and having a good time all while generally behaving ourselves.

Since Southwest Airline does not fly out of Palm Springs, and they had the best fare, I drove up to Ontario to catch an 8:15 a.m. flight. Ontario is at least an hour up the 10, and it’s best to arrive an hour before the flight (even though I paid a little extra to have my boarding pass in hand) and I had to allow time for transport from the off-site lot where I parked – so I got up at 4:00 a.m. sharp to hit the road.

The Phoenix airport played a strange part in this trip. I arrived, hung out around the gate, followed my nose to Cinnabon (B concourse – gates 11-20) then found a seat by the gate and played a lot of Solitaire on my iphone. When I finally figured out that the flight was boarding, and that I had to be on the other side of the stainless steel stanchions, I made a loop, looking down to make sure I wasn’t running over toes and headed toward my place in line. A man asked, “What number are you?” I replied, “43,” and as I looked up, saw that it was my other brother. He and his wife were not only on the same flight, but our passes were in sequential order. I took this as a sign I should buy a lottery ticket. (I didn’t. But if I had …)

San Antonio holds many attractions, including the River Walk that I wrote about in 2010, and we did it again. Most of us. My brother-in-law and sister headed over to a pub for a beer.  The pilot/guide was terrific and pointed out examples of neo-Gothic and art nouveau architecture, 200-year-old bald cypress, explained the lock and flood control system on the San Antonio River.

We ventured on to Hemisfair Park where the Tower of the Americas resides to ride up 750 feet to view the city. Click here check out the 360 degree view from the top

The next day, while other siblings, in-laws and nieces headed out to Sea World, my sister and I along with my father and his S.O. went off to explore the Mission of San Jose.

While the first mission was built in St. Augustine, Florida (on the Atlantic side of Florida) the official governmental policy of most of the east coast, in particular, the original 13 colonies, was anti-Catholicism. The Spanish headed west - actually, in the case of San Antonio, north, since Mexico was at that time considered New Spain to some. For the Spanish, establishing missions in various strategic locations (New Orleans, St. Augstine, etc.) was savvy geo-politics. For the Catholic Church, missions were an attraction to indigenous peoples, and priests used teaching how to raise crops and providing protection from other hostile Indian bands as a dangling carrot.  Of course, most of know that the Indians' languages and cultures were lost because they were required to learn both Latin and Spanish and practice an alien religion. When we look at the Latino culture in Mexico and the U.S., we're really seeing Indians who were assimilated into the Spanish culture. The National Park Service employee who conducted our tour explained that for most Latinos in the San Antonio area, unless they are of direct Spanish lineage, there is no way to trace ancestry past the mid-19th century. Even though church records start in 1718, many of them have disappeared or been destroyed.

The Mission San Antonio de Valero (what we now know as The Alamo) was established in 1718; Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo in 1720. Father Margil de Jesus was at the San Antonio de Valero, but was eager to establish additional missions and had the necessary church supplies handy, including a statue of Saint Joseph. (No priest should be without a few extra statues.) Leaders of three Indian bands were appointed governor, judge and sheriff in the new mission community. Father Nunez was in  charge of the mission project. By the time construction on the church was started in 1768 there were 350 Indians living in 84 two-room apartments, being converted from hunter-gatherers to tax-paying citizens of New Spain. They succeeded.

Next: SAMA Art

More Dates

No, this is not a commentary on how men are pigs.

A few days ago I overheard a friend saying that she had nearly gotten caught in a parade – literally. “A police car over there, and a police car up there, and then I heard the marching band.” Turns out it was the parade for the annual Date Festival in Indio, California. I remarked that I had never attended, and probably wouldn’t because I had no one to go with (some cheese with that whine?) when she said, “Oh – I’ll go with you!” Ruined my complaining right there.

For those who haven’t read my last blog entry, go read it now. It’s all about dates (the fruit, not the social thing) in the Coachella Valley. The Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival is a celebration held at the end of date harvest (which generally goes from September 1 through the end of the year). Over the years the event has grown from a sort of agricultural expo into a two week event full of grandstand acts, camel racing, ostrich racing, pig racing, demolition derby, a nightly pageant, and so on.

Entrance to the Riverside County Date Festival Fairgrounds in Indio, California.

The Date Festival on 40 acres of permanent grounds in the middle of Indio. The fairgrounds are flanked to the east by the Larson Justice Center (courthouse), to the north by the Indio Jail, to the south by the Riverside County Police and Sheriff’s Departments as well as the County Coroner, and to the west by JFK Memorial Hospital. The only thing missing is the Fire Department. Arrests, injuries and deaths are covered – fires are extra.

The Date Festival is somewhere between the Kittson County Fair and the Minnesota State Fair in scope. While the midway is considerably larger than anything we had in Hallock, there are hardly any foods on sticks to be had. Except for chocolate covered bacon. (The concession with said bacon located conveniently - if alarmingly - next to the livestock building.)

We missed the camel races and the ostrich races, so we had to content ourselves with heading to Henrick’s Petting Zoo, full of animals willing to be friends with you as long as fed them. (Ah – sounds like some men I know.) Anyhow, I got to meet several critters who I photographed with their mouths full. They didn’t seem to mind. Among them, a walleroo (yes, from Australia – no, not a cross between a wallaby and a kangaroo, a water buffalo, a yak, a camel, a zebra, a four horned goat and an alpaca in need of dentistry that reminded me a bit of a maiden aunt. Or someone’s poodle. Or a muppet.

All the exotic animals were provided by Henrick Exotic Animal Farm in Nickerson, Kansas. Yes, Kansas.  Monte at the Kid’s Camel Rides, a gentleman with quite long whiskers, a cowboy hat and a cigarette, told me that they provide all the exotic animals for the Date Festival and have been since the 1980s. He pointed to a camel that, at the time, was carrying a little kid with silver shades and balloon animal hat. “That one’s been on stage with the Radio City Rockettes.” Really. “Yes, and this year we’ll be flying some over to Hawaii for a festival there.” Flying camels, huh? “And they’re easy to train, too.” Monte told me that he’s spent most of his life training animals, and that camels are by far the easiest to work with. “Smart. Gentle. Affectionate. Some folks say that they’re mean, but that depends on how you treat them.” Monte also shared that the Henrick Exotic Animal Farm also has a bed and breakfast, each room with a different animal theme.

The petting zoo was right next to the livestock building, where we said hello to a young (11-year-old? 12?) 4Her with a goat named Clyde. Clyde had done well at the show – a couple rosettes hung on his stall. From there we made the rounds and saw a few sheep sporting fresh wool-cuts. And then, the pigs.

Along the way, my friend had deduced that the sheep’s and pigs’ destinies most likely involved a dinner plate. She lamented the fact that these kids had spent so much time and effort on the animals and developed a genuine affection for them, and that it seemed such a shame that that’s how it would all end. I nodded, then told her, “Yeah. Well. We had pigs when I was growing up and I was never so happy to eat bacon in my life.”

Warning: Digression Ahead.

I was in high school, maybe 9^th grade, and all of a sudden there were three pigs in the barn. My brother had designed the barn with a river sand floor (easy on horse’s legs, good drainage, etc.) and box stalls that could be expanded for brood mares. As it turned out, two of these eight-by-eight box stalls had been combined for Ruby, Rupert and Roslyn, as my sister called them. My experience with pigs consisted of driving past a large factory pig farm and holding my nose even with the windows closed.

The three pigs (I know, I know) squealed, they grunted, they trotted around and around their expanded stall, they shat (which I helped clean up) and they rooted. Rooted, rooted, rooted with their ugly, snotty snouts, rooted holes in the sand that still haven’t been leveled. And they stunk. And they bit. And were mean. And tried to knock you down. And did I mention that they stunk?

And boy, was that side pork delicious.

End of Digression.

As we walked by the pens, all carpeted with spotless wood shavings, past a pig named Dilbert who weighed in at 382, we heard what I like to call Barnyard Rap. A livestock auction was in progress – pigs going to market. Bidders, meet dinner. Dinner, meet bidders.

Do-I-hear-a-hundred-a-hundred-a-hundred-for-a-pig-pig-pig-a-hundred-a-hundred-and-twenty-five-twenty-five-twenty-five-hey-fifty-fifty-fifty-fifty-a-hundred-and-fifty-now…  I just love that.

According to a woman I asked, generally the bidding starts around $1.25 per pound (thus the call for hundred-and-twenty-five) and goes up to around $3.00. Do the math. Dilbert’s gonna bring home some bacon.

I sometimes hear derisive comments about 4H and FFA. And to many people, those groups are uncool, full of hicks, losers. But as I watched these kids interact with the adults and prep their stock for the ring, and heard what pork was selling for, I had to laugh. These are kids who, by the end a year raising an animal for market, understand business. Overhead, hours, effort, margins – they learn it.

Ok, so on we went to the pig races, another Henrick’s activity. Here’s a video. Afterwards, we went and got some smoked pork spare ribs. Were they ever good. Almost as good as that side pork years ago.

 Robert M.C. Fullenwider, the first manager of the fair, envisioned the Arabian Nights theme that persists today. Writer Louise Dardenelle wrote the play, “Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Banou,” that is still performed nightly. Harry Oliver, a retired motion picture set designer, created the stage and set complete with minarets and domes. Every year since 1947, a new Queen Scheherazade is crowned. And yes, the queen and her court all wear the spangly bra-top and sheer trouser thingies.  And tiaras.

Meet Prince Ahmed.

This might be Fairy Banou.

We ate churros. Walked through all the exhibit buildings, past Fine Arts entries including sculpture, paintings and photographs. We looked through the commercial tent with massage chairs, interchangeable purse shells, t-shirts, shoe-shiners that tried to sell me a $35 leather cleaner kit (no dice, but he was an awfully cute shoe-shiner), $20 salsa mix (OK, I bought that one, but it makes 50 batches of salsa), cookware, purses made from coconut shells (almost got me on that one), and more and more and more.

We saw the produce displays that had been there for a couple weeks (this was the last weekend of the fair), crafts that should never have been made, crafts that should be displayed with pride in a conspicuous place, and a gigantic model train.  Finally, we walked out the way we had come in, pushing against the tide of folks coming in to see that night's grandstand shoe, the band Switchfoot. Next year, maybe I’ll see the camel races.

The Stroke, continued

I know I promised an entry about the Date Festival in Indio which I attended a week ago, but I've been working more on this piece and think it might turn into something more. Tentatively, a book entitled, "Drunk and Disorderly." Hope you enjoy. I'll be doing more reading about stroke, the brain, disorders, drinking, etc. The book I'm starting currently is called "An Alchemy of Mind," by Diane Ackerman. On order from Amazon: "Migraine," by Oliver Sacks and "Stroke of Insight," by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. (who happens to be a brain researcher. Check out her talk about her experience here.  By the way, any of you reading along who knew my mother, please feel free to share any experiences or memories. I sure miss her - all of her creativity and her flaws.

            My mother appeared to me a very solitary figure. I didn’t see her surrounded by like-minded folks. She spent much of her time engaged in quilting, sewing, gardening, canning, cooking, fixing, laundering, wrangling, feeding, transporting … ad infinitum. When did she have the time to mix with those who thought, read, felt, created?  I know that she did. The public library in my home town was created in part because of her efforts. The community theater owes its existence to a group that included her. Our house was dotted with creative projects that she brought home after her Homemakers club met: a macramé plant hanger; little curly-cue papers glued to a matting background in the shape of flowers. And as much as I thought they looked pretty cool, at least from the vantage point of a 5- or 10-year-old, her attitude more often than not was one of dissatisfaction with what she had created, a tight sigh, an exhalation of “Well.” She was expert at leaving the sentence incomplete, her frustration fully expressed by the power of the unvoiced.

           

 *

            In 2005, after years of dealing with an undiagnosed and then, finally, treated depression, I was pronounced subclinical bipolar by a new psychiatrist. A recent cross-country move necessitated finding a new physician to review and prescribe meds, and this guy started from scratch.

            He asked lots of questions, which I suppose is appropriate for an assessment. What is your daily mood? Is your depression the blue type where you don’t want to get out of bed – or is it the anxious type? (The anxious type.) Does your mood usually stay the same during the day, or do you go up and down? (Well doesn’t everybody?) Do you get mad pretty easy? (No. But once I do … ) Do you ever become violent when you get angry? (Again, doesn’t everybody?) I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions, but I want you to remember the phrase “big blue world”.  Keep that in your mind while you’re answering. Tell me the phrase after we’re done. I waited for him to ask for the phrase at the end. He never did, and I didn’t remind him. I wonder if that would have made a difference.

            Then there was the battery of associations, name as many words that mean this, how many words starting with “f” can you name? Go! (fashion, fun, Funyons, fix, fixation, fixative, friendly, friendless, fantastic, fantasy, fidelity, France, fabulous, furry, fender, flipper, flippant, fuck …) Time’s up.

            I cried when he explained why he thought I fit the profile – no, why I fit the profile – no, why I am bipolar. At the time, I couldn’t explain why I was upset. I just was. His desk was a mess, piled with paper, small office books and bookcases (I always wonder if these people have really read all those books, or if they’re good office props ..) and his voice that he said he had “hurt” which alternated sometimes in the same word from fully voiced to a hoarse whisper. He sent me home with meds that actually are for seizures, but have an of-label use as a psychotropic. I took one the next morning and felt as though my brain had just flat-lined. Where was the chatter, the hum assuring me that I’m alive? Nothing. My head was dark, abandoned by its own thoughts. I hated it. So I called him and told him thank you, but I wouldn’t be taking the meds and didn’t believe his diagnosis.

            I understand now that the reason I was so upset about his assessment was that he had just proclaimed that one more thing was wrong with my brain. Migraines. Alcoholism. A stroke. Depression. Bipolar. Additionally, with this final item, I had strayed into DSM Appendix territory. Two years later, I had another psychiatrist make the same diagnosis, and, beaten into submission by my own struggle to keep acting like I was just great, thanks, I acquiesced and took the meds that Dr. Number One prescribed in the first place. Now, I don’t really care about it anymore because first of all, everybody has something going on, they just don’t always do anything about it, and second, the net result is the same and I’m essentially still who I always have been. So who really cares? But at the time, I still had a lot invested in looking good. I didn’t want one more thing.

            My mother’s refusal to seek diagnosis and help for her high blood pressure, her refusal to get help for her own depression, her refusal to accept or ask for help even when her body finally gave out as she was dying, is understandable now. Completely understandable.

*

            I have never been a person who believes in the onion theory, this whole saccharin, “peel back the layers and it might make you cry.” Bullshit. I have always lived from the inside out, my awakenings preceded by interior shifts akin to tectonic activity. Physiological and psychological plates shift and grate against each other. Pressure builds. Sometimes there’s an explosion.

            One time, I confided the fact that I had a stroke to someone I hardly knew – a poet I had just met at a writing conference. As we spoke about the phenomenon, she shared her struggle with depression. I shared my perception about tectonics of psyche. She asked about aftershocks. I paused a long time before I said, “yeesss.” But, I added, not the sort that I felt immediately, or even could recognize at the time as aftershocks. For example, I continued to smoke after I had the stroke, even while I was in the hospital, sympathetic aides would wheel me down with my heparin IV drip to the main entrance (all rooms were non-smoking by that time, not the case when I was hospitalized a few years before for pneumonia.) That every time I had a headache, not even a migraine, I wondered if it was happening again; every time I ate candy with peanuts – every time I exercised and my heart rate exceeded 130 beats per minute.

            My mother was also tectonic by nature. She was like California – a shift – a boom – another shift, more shakes. In the Golden State, the temblors never end, but are part and parcel of proximity to a key continental plate that can’t help but move. The earth is in constant flux. An earthquake only relieves pressure of the moment, it can not bring final relief. The five of us kids were like scientists helpless to predict who struggled to predict Mother’s disturbances for the sake of safe evacuation. These episodes never really brought her relief, but were an ingrained way of life, which begs the question – which ones were the aftershocks? Any of them?

Hot Date

It’s not what you think – trust me. I’m referring to a visit about a month ago with my father and his wife to Shields Date Garden in Indio. Whenever they visit, Shield’s is one of the places we have to stop so that Alberta can restock her date stores.

Since I’ve lived in the area for six years, and have had visitors a few times, I’m no stranger to Shields Date Gardens, but last month was the first time that I actually took the time to check out the film presentation about the Romance and Sex Life of the Date that’s touted on a billboard on Highway 111.  Back in the day, that sign was pretty racey.

 The film, like the entire Shields facility, is vintage 1950s. The show is travelogue meets fifth grade science film, narrated by a male who sounds as though he does voice-overs for newsreels. Awkward attempts have been made to make the presentation more modern (new photographs spliced in, as well as updated community information) but the best parts are the obviously original pieces of film.

Many of us in California are migrants of some variety, and Shields was not an exception.  He was born in Iowa and schooled in Montana to be a mining engineer. His wife, Bess, was from Kansas. They met and married here. Neither of them had any farming or ranching experience when they arrived in Indio, population 500.

The Coachella Valley is similar to the Red River valley where I grew up, in that it’s the bottom of what was an ancient lake. Plant something in the sediment, it can’t help but grow. When the Southern Pacific Railroad came through here in 1904, people started exploring the area and discovered deep Artisian wells. Especially in the areas around Indio and Coachella, a farmer could poke a hole in the ground and watch a water geyser spew forth.

As the interest in area agriculture grew, the University of California, Riverside got involved and started investigating the viability of growing dates here. They found that yes, dates could flourish in the area, and by the 1920s, date groves lined California State Highway 111 from Palm Springs all the way to Indio, a distance of about 20 miles.

To set himself apart from the competition, Floyd developed a lecture about the romance and sex life of the date. (We all know that sex sells.) The lecture became a slide show and then a movie. 

Floyd Shields

 The east valley was booming by the 1940s. The Salton Sea – a massive body of water formed when the engorged Colorado River broke levees and flowed for two years into the Salton Sink region – was enjoying great popularity as a resort destination. Date farming had taken off, as well as citrus farming and other table crops. Shields constructed his Date Gardens building in 1950, put up the knight in 1953, and has been here ever since.

A couple notes about date farming that I found fascinating: Dates, although supposedly the oldest known cultivated tree crop, are difficult to grow. The trees take 15 years to mature, and 20 years to yield any return. Pollination has to be done manually, which makes the whole romance and sex life thing a lot less titillating. Male flowers are cut from the trees, then bound to females. Workers have to climb the palms and visit the pairings every day, shake out pollen on them with a sort of powder puff. The branches are full of thorns which have to be removed. As the fruit starts to ripen, it has to be bagged and tied to protect it. The groves require 10 acre feet of water per year, which is equal to about 120 inches of rainfall. If it wasn’t for the American Canal that brings water from the Colorado, it would be impossible to grow this crop here. In August, the fruit has to have water proof covers placed over it (different than the bags), and finally ripens about September 1. From then until the end of the year, dates are picked manually about once a week; they don’t all ripen at the same time.

The only date groves left on Hwy 111 now are the Shields’ groves. There are still farms farther east in the valley, but just about the only things growing on the fertile alluvial fan now are golf courses and finely manicured lawns. Parking lots, streets, strip malls, country clubs and massive resorts line the valley from end to end.

In 1921, the first Date Festival was held in Indio to celebrate the harvest. The fair continued annually for a few years, but interest waned. Sixteen years later, in 1937, the festival returned and has been an annual event ever since. Next time: Goin’ to the Fair.

The Stroke

Some of you know that I suffered a stroke years ago. I've just started doing some writing about that, and am sharing the first few words with you here. More about the environs of the Coachella Valley to come.

When I could not speak, I did not use the time wisely. I did not contemplate the limitations yet absolute necessity of language. I did not explore how people compensate for lack of verbal capability with gesture, facial expressions, body positions. I did not meditate in quietude, nor did I accept my muteness with a knowing that my aphasia would resolve and the use of my right hand would return, if a bit cumbersome still, years later. I did none of those things.

            I now understand that the state in which I existed for ten days and the months that followed was the low hum of panic; a foundation of fury buried under the mortar of anxiety. Resistance, alternating with acquiescence. But never acceptance. Like so much of my life until then and for years after, not acceptance.

            When I could not talk, it was not because I had contracted the common form of streptococcus in my respiratory system. Nor did I have laryngitis, the kind I suffered as a teenager after screaming at hockey games. When I couldn’t talk, it was because a blood vessel or capillary in my brain closed up, spasmed tight as an unsprung bud. That vessel – one of myriad vessels along the route from lung to heart and on –  cut off oxygen to the part of my brain that enabled me to not only think of language and choose words, but actually make my mouth form them. Since the left side of my brain experienced the trauma, my right arm and hand were paralyzed.

             The year was 1994. After six years of auditioning for regional theater and commercials, I had given up constantly have to choose between buying groceries and paying rent. If truth be told, acting was a lot of hard work with little reward for the schmoozing that passed as an audition. Young, immature, impatient – I did the next rational thing and decided to become a best-selling author. After a bad breakup I found a new man. And although I wasn’t in love with him (our relationship always felt paternal or familiar rather than passionate or romantic) he supported me in my quest to find a creative voice that worked. A therapist kept encouraging me to write. So off I went to the local community college for creative writing courses, the first of which I was completing when I had the stroke.

            “Stroke” is a word I have never understood as it is applied to that brain condition that kills people or steals much of their physical and mental capabilities. A stroke. With which swimmers propel themselves. Golfers keep score. The cam in an engine moves. Crew teams soar. Boxers win. Abusers instill fear. A clock tells time. Batters are out. The Universe bestows luck. A pen removes a word. A lovers caresses. In the 1590s, an apoplectic seizure was referred to as The Stroke of God’s Hand. The word implies mechanical movement, testament to language’s imprecision that a physical phenomenon that freezes activity is called a stroke.

            In retrospect, I should not be surprised by the irony that I lost the ability to speak at the time I was trying to find my voice. If a person wanted to get all metaphysical about it, it makes perfect sense. At the start of my Hundred Years of Therapy, I went to explore another creative outlet – and started a new job working for a woman whose management style was all about stifling me. Of course I lost the ability to speak and write. Of course I lost language.

            Not only did I not have the words then, I hardly have the words now. It is something that I share rarely. People look at me differently when I share that I’ve experienced a condition that generally afflicts old people. Only old people have strokes, and then they lose their minds, drool onto their housecoats in a ratty nursing facility, unable to move, speak, understand or care for themselves until they die. Old people have strokes and can’t talk, can’t feel their mouths, don’t know they’re spitting food on the personal they’re talking to. So I had no words. I still have no words. Until, much like the time in 1994, all of a sudden, I did. Some synapse, some impulse, some new pathway formed and language for this experience finally came.

            I asked my father recently what he remembered about that December and the following months. He paused – looking for the words? – finally admitting, “Not much. I had my hands full here.” He said it with both apology and defiance. What his hands were full of was unapologetic defiance in the form of my mother, who, ironically, had been suffering strokes, probably since her 40s. Often snappish and short tempered, my mother complained frequently of headaches. I can picture her brushing – rushing – past me on the way to the medicine cabinet for buffered aspirin (why buffered? did she take so many that the medication hurt her stomach?) her eyes looking straight through me. When she was finally diagnosed with hypertension, her blood pressure was so high it couldn’t be measured. She spent a lot of time on the couch, watching ball games, mostly the Minnesota Twins, shouting at Killebrew, mocking Pete Rose when they played the Red Sox. “Oh, he’s such a … You’d think that they wouldn’t get so big.” The judgment, “Oh, he’s such a…”  Such a what?  “Such a …” became the ultimate criticism. “Such a …” was a fabulous way to get us kids to fill in the blank. “Oh, don’t be such a …” What? Whiner? Baby? Loudmouth? Chatterbox? For me, being called a Such A usually had something to do with shutting up.