Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Seven Days in the Life .... Death ..... Life


Christmas night.

Powdery snow. Very cold winds. Deserted streets.  Eye-level spots of colored light are everywhere: red, green, blue, white, orange.

Two mylar balloons, blue and silver, are tied to a light pole - they thump softly in the wind.

The night seems tired. Expectant. Tensed for travail that may or may not come.

If you've been following my Facebook posts you'll know that one week ago this morning - or a lifetime ago in our hearts - my dear friend Catherine Collins Bernard suffered what seems a one-in-a-million medical injury during a routine laproscopic procedure at Mercy Hospital.

That deeply internal injury led to a complete bleedout and began a massive, heroic fight to save her life.

Catherine led it.


90 minutes of chest compression. Heart failure due to blood loss. Possible brain damage from lack of circulation. Surgery to stop the bleeding. Possible intestinal ischemia. Possible lateral herniation.

And that was day one.

On night one she shocked everyone by squeezing our hands in response to questions. She should have been dead.


Her sheer determination to stay alive, coupled with her physical strength, defeated every possible setback over the next 5 days.

Catherine is perhaps my best friend in the world, one of those people who knows everything about you. Not someone you tell everything to, but someone who knows everything, beyond mere telling - someone with a rock bottom sense of who you really are - not that they love it all, or even like it, but a person who knows what the really important parts are.

Though some of the specifics of your identity may not sit well with them the totality of it is clear and beloved.

And so it is with Catherine.

She is also the "mother" of Chief the Wonderdog (shown above), a huge, rescued brindle Greyhound who celebrated his 11th birthday Monday last, the day before it all broke loose.

I was terrified. Once on site there was the paralyzing sense that I could do nothing, that I would do anything, but could do nothing - to keep her safe, that the idea of losing her was intolerable. It took over my stomach, climbed up my back with talons of ice.

One week later - one lifetime, it seems - I've spent every spare moment, ended every evening with sitting at her side, channeling all the grace and energy - and violet light, at one friend's suggestion - into her hand. It's what you do for a friend you truly love.

So now we're transitioning into the recovery phase, with the occasional setback. This is just how it is.

Tonight, Christmas night, I can only breathe, listen to my feelings and thoughts, acknowledge the friends and loved ones - pretty much the same, actually - who have held me up so I could hold up Catherine's family and all of us hold her up.

Or she held us up, in some strange way.

Something like this puts your life in context - puts everything in the universe into a context. You see how it all relates, connects - all for one terrifying, astounding, eternally unfolding instant. Then it ends and you have to live it to recover it.

At least now you are aware of what is possible and you must change. You must.

I must change so that I can be there to hold a hand and give.

Portland, Maine

Sunday, December 16, 2012

The Balance

Lee Elementary - my first alma mater
Tonight, rather ill with flu and tolerating an enforced home stay to recover my energy I find it useful to follow events online and write about them in the same place.


The first wave of reactions:

The country reels from the shootings in Newtown CT - horrified, terrified, emotions settling like a flight of birds, momentarily calm and organized then whirring off again. Fight or flight. The horror of contemplating frantic parents rushing to the fire station near Sandy Creek Elementary, slowly seeing others reunite with their children, the sense of despair building as they see all the survivors reconnect.

I can imagine it. I've lost people suddenly, without preparation, even students, but never a child.

I've always served in loco parentis. Your sense of protection is fierce. The loss experienced by these parents must be paralyzing.

You do not know what to do. We watched developments online at the Orchard that Friday and were horrified. I saw in my mind all my ex-students - some of whom work right there in the store - and found fear and love I never knew was there before.

The second wave of reactions are starting to come in now:

Calls to action. Those who were further away, whose loss is not personal but also profound, they reach out. Vigils are held, political positions taken.

Perhaps there will be change. I hope so. I find myself willing to help.

In "Blink - the Power of Thinking Without Thinking" Malcolm Gladwell shares that the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo took all of 3 seconds - 41 shots. All them based on a horrible series of false impressions. And, that dramatic depictions of violence never look like that. 


We tell ourselves that guns are used to settle arguments. They're not. They're used to throw tantrums that kill. Guns do not kill people. People kill people using guns. I've had it.

Tonight I believe in the scary things. 

The senseless things that caper and kill and rip the bonds of life asunder. I believe in shadows and the light that causes them. 

In people who stand in light and cast shadows and turn from one to the other and back again - and who can see both the light and dark of those who share the world. 

Knowing that we all can reflect great light and cast great shadows and that though we cannot choose to be all light or all dark we can choose which one we reach out to. 

And that in reaching out to each other we reach out to ourselves.

Perhaps that irrational hope will balance the irrational horror visited on us all.

We shall see.

Portland, Maine

Thursday, December 6, 2012

A Child Of My Own Invention


Sorry to have taken so long to write again. The reason why is in the video posted above. Hope you can come join us.

I've been up to my neck in both the heavy weight of retail life and the intense demand of creative focus.

For those of you not following me on Facebook - and the five of you know who you are - I just last night finished the score for Acorn Theatre's production of "The Legend of The Golem".  I watched the final runthrough yesterday evening and though the timing of the scene changes needs to tighten up the show flows well and will be a great evening's entertainment.

Today I took a long walk up "my mountain" - Bradbury Mountain, in Pownal. The mountain is different, the last time I saw it was at the peak of Fall color.

Now it is bare bones - ice underfoot, puckering the mud, hiding under the leaves. You can see the structure of the hills and trees, the air is stark and cold. The light in the late morning was bright and sere.

Since today was a rare Thursday off and I'd seen the end of my active work on The Golem I'd planned on taking the walk after sleeping in....

..... and sleeping in had led to a rich dream - as are many I remember on waking.

There was a mountain, it was Fall and my path led up to a town with engaging people; their homes rustic and sophisticated in how they blended the rocks and trees of the hill into their structure.

The sun was bright and the weather cool.

They heard me singing and rapping on the trees to keep time so, naturally, I was asked to stay to teach the children to create music and movement, to learn to tell stories in more ways than just words.

Strangely the idea of starting a marching band never entered my thoughts.

The classroom was an enclosure easily opened to the outside and we sang and worked. They were very sophisticated children in terms on knowledge and having electronics and toys. But the idea of opening themselves up to movement and singing - to trusting themselves to create - seemed oddly new to them....

....except for one boy, about 7, blond, tousle-haired, glasses, blue eyes in a round, curious, serious face.

Consider Ralphie in "A Christmas Story" and you might come near to what I dreamt.

As we moved to an open amphitheater to be observed by parents and family members I challenged the children to one of the simplest theater games - "mirrors".

If you've not played it it has one goal - to make two people move as one solely by observation and a willingness to let go and trust someone else to lead. Stand about arm's length apart with one person designated as "control" and the other as "follower". Start with one hand, then an arm, adding more of the body as the partners observe and imitate - just like looking in a mirror.

The point of the game is not to "win". The point is to play the game well. You shouldn't tell who is in control and you can switch as you go along.

I love it.

And this young boy was the only one to volunteer to play.  He was good. He followed me through basic moves and then through moving the whole body, on one leg, then the other, down on all fours, crawling, waving. Then I gave control over to him and we moved in delightful, unusual, funny patterns and the amphitheater fell away.

We moved close to each other and I could feel his back against mine as we lay on our sides in the warm sun. I suddenly realized that we had backed into a corner, putting ourselves in a position where we couldn't see each other to initiate the next move.

"Extend your free arm upward and I'll move you out" I whispered.

My arm rose as I felt him against my back ....

..... and I realized that I was reaching for the ceiling of my apartment, my back against a pillow where I'd felt him the moment before.

My walk up the mountain lasted until the music in my head wasn't coming from The Golem. There was a tango, a milonga, thoughts about a possible film score, a waltz ...... and the sound of the mountain, the quiet rumble that I can hear even more clearly as the rest of Nature sleeps.

I played the game of Mirrors as long as I could until it had to break to continue - if that makes any sense.

For better or ill you have to stop a game sometimes to reset and begin again. I don't think there is any "good' or "bad" or "win" or "lose" - there is just "doing it well" and then moving on to the next thing.

Very curious to hear what happens next.

Portland, Maine