It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Tasting the Fruits

The last bite of the carrot salad lingers on my tongue – tart and crisp with the yogurt, and brightly sweet with a hidden warmth that spreads from the spoonful of chutney I stirred in.   A final sip of lemon water washes away the salad, and with it goes the tensions of the last month. 

Forgive the food references this morning; I’ve been re-reading M.F.K. Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me after reading an intriguing new biography of Fisher, An Extravagant Hunger by Anne Zimmerman.  My first journey through The Gastronomical Me took place nearly three years ago.  I picked it up in a San Francisco bookstore while alone in the City for a conference.  Fisher’s exploration of her growth and her sensual enjoyment of the world through her experiences with food seemed to perfectly mirror my solitary week exploring the culinary delights of that foggy city.  Just as I dressed in a black skirt and pearl necklace for a four-course dinner alone with my book, delighting as much in watching the people around me as in the feel of pate in my mouth, she wrote of crossing the Atlantic on her own, of solitary meals in France, and of discovering herself through her enjoyment of food.  The quote in the book’s preface spoke to me at a time when I felt that I was at last reaching an understanding of my adult self.  “To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world.” –Santayana

That was not my first business trip alone, and I had been an adult for two decades, but for whatever reason, that was the week that I first began to ‘take the measure of [my] powers.’  It was one of the first times that I saw myself as directing my own life rather than living for the approval and pleasure of others. 

This most recent encounter with M.F.K. Fisher comes at the end of a couple of months in which my meals have too often consisted of such staples as: two Bao from Costco, microwaved and eaten over the counter with a handful of cashews and a couple of dates; or a grilled cheese sandwich on white sandwich bread, accompanied by a clump of chips.  My energies have been directed goal-ward with little left for inward maintenance.  Even the things which normally center me have this month gone toward other purposes: painting – auction, decorating – auction and Sierra’s party, writing – money or business building, cooking – sustenance only.

What I hadn’t realized, until Fisher’s loving descriptions of meals, friends, and family once more penetrated the fog of my mind, was that I have been living – and eating – therapeutically rather than preventatively.  I know better, of course.  I know the benefits, to myself, and to those around me, of living with intent, of seeking the foods, people, and activities that will make me feel good, rather than seeking out palliatives once I feel bad.  Instead of taking care of myself, eating light, flavorful meals that will sustain me through the chaos, I have waited until monsters were gnawing at my stomach lining and emotions, and then downed too-large portions of the sweet, salty, and doughy foods that make me ‘feel better.’  Even though I no longer have a job that mandates short nails and tears up my hands, my nails remain unpolished and have scarcely seen a file in 60 days.  The extra glass of wine with dinner tastes good and dulls the stress, but it also packs in the calories and leaves me feeling heavy and slow well into the next morning.

It is past time for me to stop, breathe, and focus on eating the foods and doing the things that help keep me from “feeling bad” in the first place.  It is time to run because it clears my head, centers, and energizes me, not because I want to lose weight.  It is time to prepare even meals I will eat alone lovingly, with consideration for myself and for those I feed.  It is time to be aware of, and to take pleasure in, each bite, and to stop when the bites become automatic or the food tastes of sawdust.  It is time to take moments in the day to breathe, to focus on my place in the world, and to give myself enough respite during the day so that I don’t reach the end wrung out, capable only of flopping into a pool of Jello on the couch.  As life presses me with new challenges, it is time to embrace the biggest challenge of all – to live.

Turn Loose

“Now if it starts to go to pot out there, just turn loose.  Turn loose of everything.  You’ll be fine.”  That was the sum of my pre-solo sail advice from my grandfather.  Turn loose of everything, and then regroup, that and, as he and my dad glanced over their shoulders at the empty gravel parking lot, “I guess you’d better wear a life jacket in case your mother gets back.”

I was ten.  The boat in question was an El Toro, a two-man (or one girl) dinghy.  The body of water was a man-made lake on the outskirts of Merced.  Lake Yosemite must create its own weather, for even on stagnant August days, winds can whip white caps in the middle of the lake.  My mother had driven Grandma to Mass, taking my little sister with her.  As the oldest daughter in a boy-deprived family, I got to stay “with the men.”  I had sailed before, but always with an adult crammed alongside the centre-board.  However, Dad and Grandpa, apparently tired of the boom-induced cranial lumps from my unpredictable jibes, had seized upon the absence of female interference to teach me to solo.

Shivering under the 90 degree sun in a damp bathing suit and clammy “Mae West” life preserver, I slid into the stern.  Lake water lapped at the bottoms of my thighs as I clutched the tiller and sheet.  “Ok, I’m ready.”  My knuckles were white.

“Turn loose.”  Over 30 years later it amazes me that Grandpa Bligh could give that advice with a straight face.  Ask anyone who knows me well to describe me in three adjectives, and chances are, “stubborn” will be one of them.  I am not good at letting go.  Ropes, people, relationships, ideas, jobs, paragraphs, clutter, bad habits – I hold on.  I come by my tenacity honestly.  He who said, “turn loose” was the master of pig-headedness.  Yet, he knew what all too often eludes me still.  Sometimes, it will all go to pot out there, and the only thing to do is to turn loose, to let go of everything, and to hope that once the waters still, you can regroup, pick up, and begin the voyage again.

“Why didn’t you let go?”  My riding instructor stared at me as I handed over the once white cotton lead rope of my sister’s horse.  Mud caked my boots and splattered my jeans, shirt, and hair.  The calluses along the palms of my hands flared red, soon to blister.  My legs felt like jelly and my shoulders as though giants had been tearing at my arms.  Waterskiing through a muddy pasture behind a runaway horse will do that to you.  Suzie shook her head in disgust.  “Come on, Chris, you know better than that.  The gate was locked.  She couldn’t have got away.  You’re gonna get hurt doing stuff like that.  You should have let go.”

I was older in that February pasture than I had been on the summer lake, 15 or 16, but no wiser.  I did know better: if you are holding something you can’t control, let go.  I knew the rule, but had not integrated the wisdom.  When Noel, my sister’s Morgan, pulled away from me in hopes of rejoining her pasture mates in their wind-whipped freedom, I clung to the rope, stubbornness telling me that my 100 lb body could stop a 1200 lb force of nature.  Logic, reason, and common sense died beneath the wheels of the tank that is my fear of loss and failure.

I’m not good at letting go.  Hold on a little longer.  Try something different.  Try one more time.  Say the right thing.  Just keep going.  Don’t give up. 

The last one is the kicker – no one wants to be a quitter, no one wants to give up if there is a chance, just a chance that it might work.  But, the reality, the one that my Grandfather, veteran of war and widowhood, and Suzie, with two divorces behind her, knew, is that sometimes it won’t work.  Sometimes the forces pushing against us or pulling us in our wake are more powerful than we.  Sometimes it is broken and can’t be fixed.  Sometimes it will go to hell, and then it is time to let go.

A few years ago, I went on a call to vaccinate a group of semi-feral ponies.  The stallion had recently encountered some barbed-wire, and while his lacerations looked superficial from a distance, I wanted a closer look.  He wore a halter, but no lead.  “You’re going to have a hard time catching him,” said the owner.

I looked at the pony, the halter and the size of the pasture.  “No problem.  I’ll go out there by myself, and once I have him by the halter, you can bring me the rope.”  Bull-shitting through a situation is a professional specialty.

Sure enough, the pony was curious enough to come say ‘hello.’  I scritched his neck, and slid my hand down, grabbing the halter.  Just as I called, “Ok…” my patient pulled away.  No problem – he was only about double my body weight.  I centered myself and jerked on the halter.  “Whoa.”  He stopped, then pulled again.  Same response from me.  Now, this is where I went wrong – in my head this was a horse.  For a normal horse, one or two failed attempts at misbehavior is usually enough to correct the behavior.  Not so for a pony stallion – ponies are short, and have much to prove.  He jerked back a third time, and took off running.

Enclosed pasture --  no problem, right?   After all, I learned my lesson 25 years ago, didn’t I?  Sadly, not so much.  My fingers remained clenched around the cheek piece of the halter, and unable to hold my ground, my feet trotted along with the pony.  As he broke into a canter, my brain finally returned from the sandy beaches of denial, looked at my feet which had turned into cartoon wheels and the speeding ground below, and said, “This looks bad.  Maybe you should let go.”  Oops.  The brain had apparently left its knowledge of physics beneath a palm tree.  My four-legged partner and I had been travelling at his speed, not mine.  As my fingers released the halter, my body fell victim to inertia.  My feet, unable to sustain their free-wheeling momentum alone, slowed, but my upper body continued to travel at pony-speed.  Like Wile E. Coyote plunging from a cliff, I had a split-second of “Uh-oh” before the ground rushed toward my face.

Back in the office, as I held an ice-pack to my knee (in a last ditch effort to ‘save face’ I had broken my fall with my left patella) and tried to make an incident report sound logical (How will you avoid this incident in the future?  Turn loose of the damn pony.), my technician Mel and a client stared at me and shook their heads.  “Why didn’t you just let go?”

The only answer I can give is that some of us need more lessons than others.  For some, through faith, reason, or emotional balance, letting go seems to come fairly easily.  The rest of us need the rope burns, the bruises, the heartache, and the spectacular failures to learn the balance between giving up and accepting the inevitable.  The house has been gone from us since September.  I have finally stopped planning projects or trying to drive too far up I-5.  The practice where I worked closed a week and a half ago.  I still run through cases in my head in the evenings, thinking, “When I get to work, I need to…”  “Kill your darlings,” goes the writing advice.  I am editing the first draft of the novel now, and bleeding just a little as I force the ink across any paragraph that doesn’t work, doesn’t contribute, or is trying to get away.

More things exist outside of my control than within it. 

“God grant me the serenity

 to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference...”  Reinhold Niebuhr

And God grant me the ability to turn loose when it all goes to pot.  Oh, and can I have a life jacket, please? 

The Last Day

“Wake up!  Support your wife.  It’s her last day of work!”  Mike is not a morning person.  At 6:30 every weekday, I get up from my computer, walk into our bedroom, and spend the next 15-30 minutes convincing my husband that he must overcome gravity in order to contribute to his corner of the world.  As I chirped out this morning’s greeting, a sense of déjà ecoute wacked me on the head.  This sounded hideously familiar.  My hummingbird brain tracked the sense to the source.  Lethal Weapon (III?  IV?).  Great.  At 6:30 A. M., I channel Danny Glover.  ‘This is it,’ I thought.  ‘I’ve jinxed myself.  This is going to be the day my job finally kills me.’

Since I’m sitting here typing, it’s not exactly a spoiler to point out that I was wrong.  I escaped the last day alive, and with all limbs attached. 

The last day.  My last day as a practicing veterinarian (for the foreseeable future) and the last day for Bradshaw Vet’s Large Animal Clinic – forever.  It was a good day, pretty damn close to a perfect day.

It was the sort of day that makes you wonder why everyone doesn’t become an ambulatory vet:  St. Patrick’s Day green, chalk-pastel-impossible grass; white, puffy trees, azure skies, distant, snow-capped mountains; country roads rolling endlessly across hills; and grazing cattle.  It might have been easier to say goodbye had the hills been baked brown, or had chill rain soaked my windshield, but this was the sort of day that says, “You are alive.  Every end has a beginning.  Nothing is permanent.  This will all change, and therein lies the beauty.”

Seven years ago, on a February day much like this, a palomino mare stood beneath the fragrant almond blossoms of our orchard, munching stems of cartoon grass.  My friend, my horse.  Goldie died that day.  She was 36 years old, arthritic, and in liver failure.  I euthanized her and friends buried her in that orchard.  It sounds bare doesn’t it, matter-of-fact.  It isn’t.

Points in life stand out, stars that shine through the continuous fog of daily existence: places, events, people, animals, experiences.   These are the things that shape us.  I still love spring, but I do not see grass in that extraordinary shade of luminous, tender, green without remembering it passing the lips of my best friend, my best teacher just before I ended her life.  I felt relief that day too. 

Spring – humans celebrate new life, new beginnings in the spring.  However, in our most primitive places, we know that nothing begins anew without an end.   In the Christian tradition, Easter celebrates the Resurrection, but first you must have the Passion and the Death.  The legend of the Phoenix speaks of a bird reborn – from the ashes of failure.

Goldie was in my head today, because in many ways, she was the beginning.  My first horse: ornery, beautiful, challenging, dangerous, and loving – she taught me to accept pain and persist, that stubbornness could be a virtue, and that I was worth following – almost anywhere.  That spring that I let my mare and her aching joints and failing organs sink into the ground, I was also  letting the things of my childhood pass away, exchanging memories for motherhood, shifting friendships into adult status, working through old hurts and insecurities, finding my footing in a job that had been a bold adventure.

As that job ends, and as I let its bones sink into the soil, it is easy to forget how new and scary clinical medicine was, easy to forget the huge leap of returning to a field that I hadn’t touched since graduating vet school five years before.  The terror of cutting living tissue for the first time in years, and doing so without a protective net of residents and clinicians hovering over my shoulders, has receded.  The humiliating, soul-crushing pain of the first angry phone call from a client has dimmed with time and familiarity.  As clients called, hugged, and left tearful cards yesterday, it was strange to remember my first months in the practice, months when people asked “Isn’t there anyone else?” when they discovered that their appointment was with the new, woman vet, months when I heard, “You’re not Tom!” every time I stepped out of my truck.  As Lana and I headed out on our last ambulatory call last night, the last time a truck would leave that parking lot to treat an animal, memory hit.

It was late spring, blossoms on trees had given way to unfurled leaves, emerald grasses were streaking gold along the tips.  Cattle lowed in the corral behind us, and the smell of dust, oiled metal, and anxiety blew across the gravel drive.  The wife of the rancher looked at me, “I suppose you’re only going to treat horses.”  It wasn’t a question.

“Nope.  I’ll treat anything with hooves!”  I forced myself not to cross my arms or straighten my shoulders, shoved my body back into the sideways slouch of those who wear boots for a living.

She looked at Lana – poor Lana, torn between the automatic defense of “The Doctor,” a defense tattooed upon her brain in technician school, and the reality of her experience of a revolving door of associates – “So, how long is this,” the chin bobbed toward me, “one going to last?”

Lana hesitated, “I give every one of them a year.  Then we’ll see.”

I had originally given myself a year, but these words committed me to making this job work, to staying longer, to prove that I could do it.  That was May, 2001.

Yesterday, as Lana and I pulled out of the parking lot, I giggled and looked over at her, “Should we call Kathy and tell her I went down with the ship?”

A grin shoved its way past Lana’s tears.  “You sure made it past that year.”

I made it through that first year and through each of the subsequent nine largely because of Lana.  I haven’t written enough about our technician, my friend.  And I’m not sure how to.  Lana taught me the parts of my job that the university never mentioned.  How to drive a stick shift; how to remove a lariat rope from the neck of a rank steer without breaking fingers; that it is possible to finish gelding a horse as he recovers prematurely from anesthesia (“Just cut faster!”); that someone who has never been able to hear my voice could spend a decade reading my lips, and when she couldn’t see them, would read my mind.  Lana is the one person who, no matter how bad the situation (and some have been very bad indeed), would say to me quietly, “You can do it.  I have great faith in you.”  And because she did, I did.

The closure of the large animal clinic is removing the only job Lana has known in 25 years.  And so, she is going into the small animal practice, to be a surgery technician, using skills largely untapped in that quarter century.  She will be working in surgery – in a room full of people whose faces are covered by blue paper masks.  Lana reads lips.  But, I know that she will find a way to read their minds.  I know she can do it.  I have great faith in her.

Spring – new life, renewal, transition.  Death precedes new life.  Yesterday, I was Dr. Corp, the vet.  Today I am a writer.  I remain a veterinarian, and I have always been a writer, but there is a palpable shift into the unknown.  The writer sees pages of complete, edited text behind me, and reams of blank white ahead.  The trick is to remember that the chapters of the past decade were once empty paper.