Fish Hospice

My Betta is in hospice.

For weeks he's been lying at the bottom of the big vase that's been his home for the last four years.  His veil-like fins are ragged and torn, and the iridescent blue scales on his tiny body have turned the color of sand.  Every morning I look at him and think, it's all over now, he's finally dead.  But as I stand there rehearsing burial scenarios I'll catch the flicker of an eye, or the slight shudder of a  pectoral fin. 

I bought him because he looked like a flower, with his creamy trailing fins veined with pink and blue, and his bright azure body.  And then I discovered that he wanted a relationship.

At first I only noticed that whenever I went near his vase, which I kept on the kitchen counter, he would swim towards me.  Then one day I idly stuck my index finger in the water and he swam straight to it.  I wiggled my finger and stroked a fin, then stroked again, and he stayed right there, like a dog.  After that I felt obliged to give him daily stroking sessions.  How could I not?  He was so much more than a flower.

"Want to pet my fish?" I would ask my friends.  And they would stick their fingers in and my Betta would swim up to them--but he only swam towards female fingers.  Let a male of any age, no matter how mild, put his finger in and the Betta would swish his lacy tail and swim away.

Now he's dying.  Every time I walk by his vase I think, he's probably suffering.  He's ancient for a captive Betta, and he'll never recover.  I should probably euthanize him.  But the days pass and I can't seem to do it.  Mind you, I have in the past done the right thing by my old and suffering dogs and cats, and taken them to the vet to be put down.  I have personally clubbed to death wolf spiders that were bigger than my Betta, and in the prime of life.  But this is different.

So for the moment, I'm giving my fish palliative care, trying to keep him comfortable but avoiding extreme measures.  I change his water regularly.  I make sure his heater is on.  And now and then I look into his eyes, which still appear to look back at me, and I tell him that he's the most amazing fish I've ever known, and that it's all right to let go.

Frida Y Yo

On bad days I think of Frida, nailed to her bed by pain, staring up at the ceiling, wondering when her husband, the painter Diego Rivera, a man as round and fat as the sun, would come home, and if he was finished making love to her sister. 

She dressed in Mexican folk costumes, partly because the long skirts hid her polio-withered leg, and decorated herself with chunky necklaces made from broken Aztec beads.  She braided her hair with colored wools and piled it on top or her head and put big bows and flowers in it until it looked like an altar to some garish god.  She wore all this while she lay in bed, recovering from one or another of 30 operations to repair her spine and pelvis, which were broken in a streetcar accident when she was a girl. 

She had a mirror attached to the underside of the bed canopy so she could paint while lying down with her canvas propped up against her knees.  Over and over, she painted herself against backgrounds of glossy leaves and fruits, embraced by monkeys and surrounded by butterflies and parrots, hummingbirds and a little hairless, gray-skinned Xoloitzcuintle dog. 

Critics say that she lacks universality, that her art is only about herself.    Prolonged illness turns you inward, and what else can you do while everybody else is out going about their business but ruminate about yourself?  "I paint myself because I am so often alone," she said.

She didn't make it to 50.  She died of a clot in her lungs, having recently undergone the amputation of a gangrenous leg, and of the alcohol and pain killers to which she was addicted--though for the latter, who can blame her?


I lie in bed with Bisou asleep on my stomach and wonder, how did Frida keep from getting oil paint all over herself when she painted lying on her back?  Were her monkeys and her dog allowed on the bed? With her appalling pain, how did she manage that impressive string of love affairs with men and women, cabaret dancers, movie stars and intellectuals, and were they just a way to get back at Diego? 

Most of all I wonder, what kept her going?  What reservoir of grit and rage drove this tiny hirsute woman to paint 140 pictures that, even if you don't like them, you will never forget?

She was not a nice person, as she was the first to admit.  Yet to me she is a saint of sorts, the patron saint of those whose bodies have betrayed them but who struggle to make their stories be about something more than just that.

What Wisdom, Where?

When eating organic/vegetarian/gluten free, working out at the gym, and drinking eight glasses of water a day cease to delay the inevitable, baby boomers console themselves by thinking that, although age does not improve one's looks, at least it makes one wiser.

We've all heard how, having ceased to strive for mates and worldly success,  no longer driven by the urge to please others, we are finally free to be ourselves.  Some studies actually show that people become happier as they age.   Whether or not we've grown rich in money and offspring, we have all grown rich in experience, and thus qualify for the job reserved for elders in traditional societies since time immemorial:  the role of counselor, seer, and sage.

I cannot tell you how weird this makes me feel.  Whenever I hear my contemporaries yammering on about how much more serene, centered, and happy they are than they used to be, I wonder if I am retarded somehow, and if I have missed some crucial step in this final, blessed phase of life.

At seventy, I do not feel one speck wiser than I did in my thirties.  On the contrary, not only have I forgotten 85% of the things that I once knew, but the hole that that knowledge left behind, supposedly to make room for a new hoard of wisdom and discernment, remains a vacuum into which I daily stare, and shudder.

As for the role of counselor and village sage, don't make me laugh!  In my callow youth, if someone asked for my advice I jumped to give it. But now, if you ask my opinion on what you should have for dinner, I will be struck dumb.  Truffle-stuffed quail in puff pastry?  Beans and rice?  A simple cup of broth?  How can I answer when I don't know what's in that stuff, or what your body needs at this moment, or what beans feel like on your tongue.

To quote the man in the Vatican, who am I to judge?

As for being happier now than I was years ago, I am grateful that I don't have to shave my legs as often, but I can't think of too much else to be glad about.  Still, I can say that age has made me a little kinder. I am more understanding of people, less inclined to criticism or anger.  For one thing, anger takes energy, of which I have little to spare.  But mainly, my awareness of my own deficiencies makes it easier to forgive them in others.  Again, who am I to judge?

But maybe that's where it's at, in the end--not wisdom, or knowledge, or even Love with a capital L.  Just the homely, workaday practice of kindness.  No matter how much organic kale we eat, how many miles we run, or how deeply we meditate we are all headed downhill.  But as the light dims and the wind grows colder, we can at least aim to be good company for each other.

Zen and the Recorder

Now that I have entered my eighth decade, I am learning to play the recorder.  There is no time to lose, so I practice daily, much to Bisou's dismay.  The minute she sees me pick up the green plastic case that houses the instrument, she tucks her tail between her legs and leaves the room.  And I don't blame her--the squeaks and whistles I produce often make me want to leave the room.

 

But as if the noises weren’t bad enough, there is an additional humiliation:  spit.  When an inexperienced player such as I puts the instrument to her lips and begins to blow, saliva escapes into the mouth piece, adheres to the inside of the pipe, and does terrible things to the sound.  With the exception of occasional lapses during deep sleep, I haven’t salivated involuntarily since I got my first teeth.  And now here I am, practically a century later, drooling helplessly into my recorder.

Like one of Pavlov’s dogs at the sound of the bell, the minute I start to play my salivary glands go into overdrive.  This happens especially during a lesson, or while I play a duet with one of my recorder buddies.  We all know that stress triggers bad things, from headaches to heart attacks.  For recorder players, stress triggers salivation, and viceversa.  Sure enough, as soon as I hear that half-choked, reedy sound that indicates the presence of moisture in the pipe I go into alarm mode, which in turn raises my stress levels and causes rivers of spit to gush into my instrument.

“What can I do about this awful drooling?” I asked my teacher after a particularly cacophonous session.

“Just relax and accept it,” she said, sounding more like a Zen master than a recorder instructor. “Here, try reaming it out with this,” she added, handing me a cylindrical swab.

And she was right.  The swab helps, but the real key lies in my mind and in my heart.  The more I make peace with my salivary glands, the less they feel they have to assert themselves.  Sometimes I manage to play an entire piece without having to swab.  But if, in the middle of a passage that is going well, I think to myself “wow, this sounds pretty good!” the spit instantly pours forth.  It is not unlike what happens to me in meditation when, for a few fleeting moments, I manage to stay with the breath.  As soon as I begin to congratulate myself, my monkey mind leaps into action and all is lost.

My teacher assures me that with time the spit problem will get better, though it may not go away completely (that is why they make those special swabs).  Until then, it seems that the best technique is a spiritual rather than a musical one:  I have to stay open to the possibility of drools and squeaks, errors and embarrassment, and keep on making music as best I can.

Leaving The House

Lake Champlain is frozen over, and for all I know, frozen solid as well.  But in these sub-zero mornings, if there is no wind and the sun is out, the dogs and I go for a cabin-fever abatement stroll. The walk is short, but the preparation takes forever.

First I put the invisible fence collars on Wolfie and Bisou and let them out into the back yard to relieve themselves.  Because I don't completely trust the invisible fence (would the dogs stay within  if, say, a catamount showed up?), and because I don't want them to bark at some hardy Wake Robin resident snow-shoeing by, I always go out with them, but not until I've put on an old parka of my husband's, and rubber boots. 

Back inside, I take off the parka and the boots, and exchange the dogs' invisible fence collars for their regular collars and leashes.  This causes Bisou to twirl and gyrate with glee, and to launch mock attacks at Wolfie's head, which in turn make him yodel and howl.

While this is going on, I put on an extra sweater and gather my hat, scarf, and gloves.  I slather some tingly lip balm on my lips.  I put on my long winter coat and reach down to start the zipper, which gets stuck.  Why is it, I wonder, that we can put a man on the moon but are forced to struggle with zippers all winter long? 

Next I get Bisou's little coat, and plead with her to be still so we can, sometime before the next storm hits, go for our walk.  I put her legs through the arm holes and start the zipper up the back, only it too gets stuck.  Why is it that we can put a man...etc.

I put on my winter boots, the made-in-China-of-man-made materials ones that I can slip into without having to tie laces, a great time-saver these days.  Then I get Bisou's four little boots, and call her.  But she's still leaping circles around Wolfie and now her leash has gotten tangled with his, so I go and separate them.

The sight of her boots ratchets up her excitement, and I struggle to thrust her floppy feet into the stiff, narrow boots.  The boot instructions say to tie the velcro straps tightly around the leg, but I always worry about cutting off her circulation.  As a result, she often casts a shoe during walks, and  with the wind blowing straight off the North Pole, I have to get both dogs to STAND STILL for crying out loud, take off my gloves, and put the shoe back on.

We are now ready for our walk.  But wait--are the emergency  poop bags in my right pocket, the house key in the left?  I should probably put on yak-traks, too, in case of ice, but I can't bear the idea of putting on one more thing, so I don't.

Outside the cold is...invigorating.  The locals are calling this an "old-fashioned Vermont winter."  We flatlanders console ourselves thinking what havoc it's wreaking on the tick population.  The Wake Robin sugaring brigade, of which my spouse is a novice member, is gearing up for action, checking the sap lines for squirrel damage.  Spring, they hope, will come again this year.

The dogs and I trudge along slowly--me, because I'm looking out for black ice;  Wolfie, because of his pathetic lameness;  and Bisou because of her boots, which force her to fling her legs sideways and use lots more energy than she normally would (this is a good thing).  But when I take my eyes off the pavement and look up at the sky, for the first time in forever I feel the warmth of the sun on my face.

Bedroom Marmalade

After forty-six years and nine months of daily meal preparations, when we arrived in Wake Robin last June I turned my back on cooking without a second thought.  Good bye, cheese from my goats' milk, omelettes from my hens' eggs,  pesto from my kale.  No matter that our cottage has a fully equipped kitchen, my cooking days are done.

As we prepared for the move, I got rid of much that was dear to my heart, but I couldn't bear to part with my four potted citrus trees.  They survived the move and continued to bloom and set fruit in front of the cottage until the weather turned cold and they had to come indoors.  And then my problems began.

Wanting to recreate a Mediterranean climate for the little darlings, I found them the brightest spot in the house, which happens inconveniently to be in the bedroom, right next to our bed, which is also where Wolfie and Bisou sleep.  (If I get up during the night I have to watch to avoid stepping on a sleeping dog and bumping my head against a Meyer lemon.)  But despite this prime location the trees went into a decline and started dropping leaves. 

I got them a lamp with a big fluorescent bulb that I kept on whenever we weren't trying to sleep, but the leaves kept falling--and there is no more discouraging sound that the sigh of an indoor plant's leaf dropping in the night.  I started misting the trees with water twice a day, then every time I went into the bedroom.  Eventually I plugged in a humidifier and kept it going round the clock.  But the leaves continued to fall.

It took me weeks to realize that the weird web-like filaments on the leaves and stems might have something to do with the trees' misery:  spider mites!  This, coming hard on the heels of my sarcoptic mite episode, was a bit much.  But I went to work with home-made remedies and persistence, and eventually the mites disappeared.

By then, however, the Page orange had dropped all its baby fruits.  The larger of the two Meyer lemons kept its fruit but retained exactly four leaves (if a tree can look like it has mange, that one does).  The small Meyer lemon did only slightly better.  But the stalwart Calamondin orange kept on blooming, and setting and ripening fruit as if this were Valencia rather than Vermont.  By January, its crop of cheerful, grape-sized oranges was ready to pick.

Unfortunately, Calamondins are bitter as gall.  Some people use them as decorations for meat dishes, in lieu of kumquats.  But the only way to make them palatable is to turn them into marmalade.

I had never made marmalade in my life, and was tormented by visions of imperfectly sterilized jars leading to death from botulism.  In reality, it turned out to be quite simple, the only fiddly part being the slicing and seeding of the tiny fruits.  When this was done, I boiled them in water for fifteen minutes, refrigerated the mixture overnight, then added an unconscionable amount of sugar and heated it to 220F.  Finally I poured it into four clean little jars and bunged them in the fridge, thus averting botulism.

The results were terrific:  an ideal marriage of yin and yang, bitter and sweet.  And a feast for the eyes as well, each small jar a translucent carnelian gem.

Since it contains as much sugar as it does citrus, my bedroom marmalade does not qualify as health food.  But a little goes a long way, and a scant teaspoonful of the stuff can brighten a generous slice of buttered toast, and my entire morning.

As for that mangy Meyer lemon, yesterday I saw a barely-there bit of green poking out of one of its dead-looking stems--a new leaf!  The season of resurrection is at hand.

Neurons Firing Overtime

I could have danced all night...

Well, not really.  After an hour or so of trying to remember long-forgotten steps--twinkles and grapevines and promenades--I was pretty well done in.  It had been a couple of decades since I'd last put on my suede-soled shoes and fox trotted or jitterbugged, and I am not the dancer I once was.  But it's good to be a dancer again.

Last Friday at Wake Robin we inaugurated what we hope will be a long string of ballroom dances.  There were round tables with white cloths, a sizable wood floor, and music by Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller.  About twenty of us showed up--more women than men, as is always the case where moving to music is expected.  For some, those big band sounds were the music that their parents danced and fell in love to.  For others, it was the music of their high school days. 

If a couple of years ago you had shown me a video of last Friday's scene, with me in it, I would have been incredulous.  Possibly dismayed.  Even frightened.  What, me, in a retirement community, in the company of people some of whom are less than fleet of foot? 

Like many Americans, I had bought into the superstition that old age is somehow contagious, and that the only way to keep ourselves young is to pretend that we will go on as we are forever.  How ignorant I was of the many meanings and faces of aging, of its relative and unpredictable nature, of its inevitability and its gifts.

About Friday night, you really had to be there.  There were ardent jitterbuggers, serene waltzers.  There were women dancing with women, and people dancing with people who were using walkers and canes.  At one point I asked a white-haired man who had just finished doing a competent waltz to dance with me.

"I would like to very much,"  he said.  "But I'm tired.  It happens when you're ninety-eight."  So we sat together and watched the dancers.

I've heard that dancing activates the neurons in the pleasure centers of the brain, and that watching people dance has the same effect.  Whether on the floor or off it, pleasure neurons were firing overtime at Wake Robin Friday night.

After an hour or so of steady dancing, we'd all had enough.  As my husband, who was in charge of the tech end of things, turned off various switches and I went to fetch our coats prior to stepping out into yet another sub-zero gale, I smiled at the various things the dancers had left behind--a single  glove, a bottle of red wine, a woolly scarf.  The lost-and-found department at Wake Robin does a brisk business.

It wasn't until we got back to the cottage that I realized I'd left my water bottle behind.