Wednesday, October 30, 2013

A Tale of Tails, Chained



On about hour five of seizures, neurologists, and waiting rooms, I felt a tail, trailing behind me, when I lifted, or heaved, Sophie up onto an adult examining table this afternoon to change her diaper. She had already had so many seizures. I was stifling bereft. This has got to stop, I might have thought or said aloud. I can't do this anymore. I felt the tail, its scales the years, too many years. I drag it.  Later, still more seizures and back in the car, I heard on the radio that traffic was backed up on the 101 North because of some obstruction in the middle of the highway. I'm not sure what the problem is, Kayjon Cermak of KCRW said, her voice attractive, lilting into laughter. Oh, Kayjon, you save us with your tales of road rage and obstruction, mattresses and ladders fallen off of trucks, fistfights on the side of the road, looky-loos. Oh, yes, here it is. There appears to be a large chain in the street, Kayjon elaborated, Watch out for that around Normandie. My car crept onward, north, while Sophie seized. My lips were tight closed, a trail, a tail behind me of years of doing this. I started at the sound of a police whistle and focused on an officer on a motorcycle, weaving in front of me, back and forth between cars, getting us to slow down from 10 miles an hour to 5 and then 0 and then we were stopped, in a line. The motorcycle was directly in front of my car. He climbed down off it, brown pants, the knee-high black shiny boots, the mirrored sunglasses, the bow-legs. He held his hand out, palm facing us. Stop. I think asshole, I see you and we're already stopped in the middle of the 101, where the hell else would we go? I imagine the perhaps tens of thousands of cars behind me, a tail, a trail of metal and stifled bereft. I am not making this up. The policeman turned around and stepped toward the middle of the highway, reached down and pulled up a long coiled chain in his black gloved policeman hands. He heaved it up and hauled it over and just before he reached the side of the road, he threw it, the chain, this metal tail, over the guardrail and into the brown highway brush. He was made for that moment, I decided, and was dressed for the part. When he was done, he turned to us, the front cars, gave us the signal to proceed and climbed onto his machine and took off. The beast moved forward. No gangs to bang or bust or pillaged villages to rescue, no girls in distress or crimes of passion. He could drag a chain, a tail, from the middle of the road and let it go. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go.

23 comments:

  1. An incredible insight to your day, through your incredible ability to write. I'm sorry to hear Sophie had so many seizures today.

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  2. Holy shit Elizabeth. Your writing is breathtaking.
    Damn.

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  3. What a great writer you are. Seriously. I am so sorry Sophie's seizures are back.

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  4. Damnit damnit damnit.

    Beautifully written. Xoxo

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  5. I'm sorry today was one of seizures. The way you evoke what this felt like, your consciousness within the moments, is stunning. My love.

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  6. Where is that man, destined for that one moment in time, to cast aside the heavy chain?
    Proceed. What else can you do? With caution?
    This piece (it is more than a blog post) is stunning and immediate and heavy as that chain.
    You should have heard what I told Mr. Moon about you last night. I cried when I was saying the words.

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  7. Your writing is beyond amazing… thinking of you today and hoping.

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  8. Damn. I wish I had words worth replying to yours. Your writing is profound. I am still hoping too...

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  9. What everyone else said. Your writing takes my breath away. More and more.

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  10. Oh Elizabeth. If only your writing alone could lift you and Sophie up and out of this, you would be soaring.

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  11. I'm so sorry Elizabeth. Katie had a meltdown on the horse on Sunday. I watch her world get smaller, her behavior get worse, the head banging, the pinching, pulling of hair, the screaming and the crying and I feel helpless to help her.

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  12. Pressed publish too soon. I wonder where and when it will end, for her and for me.

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  13. as your friend andreas says above. i do think that your incredible skill with language is your salvation, that it has to be a part of your beyond-imagining power to persevere. (a bright-red cardinal just perched outside my window as i write this--a beacon, please, of hope for you.)

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  14. Your writing is blazing. Writing all the stuff of life into story as it happens. It is powerful. These seizures are so cruel. I'm sorry, for you and Sophie.

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  15. Your writing is so very heavy and yet.... your perseverance is ginormous .

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  16. No words adequate. You astonish me.

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  17. Love, love, love. The writing is gorgeous and searing all at the same time. I can feel the weight you speak of and, ironically, the motorcycle cop looks in my mind's eye just like Jon from CHiPs. I am angry with him for not lifting your chain, too, and flinging it out into the universe, saying, "This does not belong here. This is not hers. Make it go away." I am imagining it so, behind closed eyes, that today is lighter and easier than yesterday. Love.

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  18. I wrote a lot of poetry in my teens, and there is a line from one of my poems that always crops up at times like this - "Why must it be so?" I think of Sophie and your life with her, especially when reading posts like this, and I hear my poem in my head with a different sort of angst than when I wrote it nearly thirty years ago. Sending love.

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  19. I've read this last week of yours practically holding my breath. So much hope, such a brief reprieve. I will continue to hold my breath - maybe so that you can let yours go for a moment.

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