Two weeks later

I can feel the gears in motion
Mind, heart, and soul
Something different is happening
But I don't know what that is
Some new understanding
And when I know
I'll let you know...

First day back working
It was good!
Talked to Paula,
The Real Change vendor outside Whole Foods
I talk to her nearly every morning walking to work
A friend of hers rescued an injured butterfly
It was trustingly resting on his index finger
He gently placed it on a flower
On one of the outside Whole Foods flower bouquets.
He took a picture with his cell phone
And showed it to Paula and myself
A beautiful highlight of my day.

At work
Carolyn brought out a book signed by all by the department
H.A. Rey's Curious George Goes to the Hospital
I was completely charmed!
Curious George gets a tummy ache from swallowing a puzzle piece
I'm a bit curious and puzzled why I got a hernia
Perfect choice!
Two co-workers gave me Toblerone bars
I love Toblerone!
I just ate one during this typing
Another co-worker treated me to lunch
It was so good to see my co-workers again after two weeks recovery!

I took it slower at work and sat down more
Was careful not to lift too much
Careful how I sit
Getting up from knees to stand still painful
As is standing in one place
Still restless...
Discovered I could get just as much done at a slower rate
Because I'm thinking more clearly and thoroughly
Less wasted do-over time
My customer service is more thorough and relaxed
People happier.

Went to dance practice tonight
So good to see them again!
They were so helpful during my whole hernia operation and recovery
Giving me a ride to and from the hospital
Bringing me food while I was home bound
I discovered if I slowed down and didn't kick high
I could dance just fine
That gave me hope
That I will make it to the Thursday
Contradance.

And even though I still feel some pain
I mostly feel
Grateful.

Denis Streeter   7/10/12

Preparation

Steeped in the recovery time of my hernia operation, I occasionally branch out to see a friend, go for a short walk, or take care of some business.  Time has slowed down for me, but it hasn't for anyone else. I start work again after two weeks off on Tuesday.  I think the hardest will be getting used to the speeded up world again...and of course the social dynamic that goes with it.  Time and prayer will tell.  I'm just trying to prepare myself. 

History lesson

I'm still raving about Jack Gantos' 2012 Newbery award book "Dead End in Norvelt".  It is a truly unique creation.  Set in 1962 Norvelt, Pennsyvania, 12 year old Jack Gantos is the main character in a plot the inside book jacket genuinely describes as "melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional".  I haven't written a decent poem in weeks, so at Monday night poetry I read them the following excerpt:  Oops...a little background...  Jack has been grounded for the summer and he's only allowed to help feisty old neighbor Miss Volker type obituaries...
     "When the sun goes down each day it turns its back
on the present and steps into the past," she started with
a strong, even voice, "but it is never dead.  History is a
form of nature, like the mountains and sea and sky.  His-
tory began when the universe began with a 'Big Bang,'
which is one reason why most people think history has
to be about a big event like a catastrophe or a moment
of divine creation, but every living soul is a book of
their own history, which sits on the ever-growing shelf
in the library of human memories.  Sadly, we don't
know the history of every person who ever lived, and
unfortunately many books about historic people, like
the lost Greek and Latin and Arabic texts, are gone
forever and are as lost as the lost world of Atlantis.
     "But here in Norvelt we had one of those librarians
who collected the tiniest books of human history.  Mrs.
Hamsby, who died today at age seventy-seven, was the
first postmistress of Norvelt and she saved all the lost
letters, those scraps of history that ended up as 'un-
deliverable' in a quiet corner of Norvelt.  But they were
not 'unwanted'.  Mrs. Hamsby carefully pinned each en-
velope to the wall, so that the rooms of her house were
lined from floor to ceiling with letter upon letter, and
when you arrived for tea it appeared as if the walls
were papered with the overlapping scales of an ancient
fish.  You were always welcome to unpin an envelope
and read the orphaned letter, as if you were browsing
in a library of abandoned histories.
     "Each room has its own motif of stamps, so that the
parlor room is papered with human stamps as if people
such as Lincoln, or Queen Elizabeth, or Joan of Arc had
come to visit.  The bedroom has the stamps of lovely
landscapes you might discover in your dreams, and the
bathroom has stamps with oceans and rivers and rain.
Each stamp is a snapshot of a story, of one thin slice of
history captured like an ant in amber.  There is history
in every blink of an eye, and Mrs. Hamsby knew well
that within the lost letter was the folded soul of the
writer wrapped in the body of the envelope and mailed
into the unknown.  And for this tiny museum of lost
history we citizens of Norvelt thanks her."

pages 259-261, "Dead End in Norvelt" by Jack Gantos, FSG, 2011

Many poets were curious about this book...
skimming through the pages..
perhaps pondering their histories...

     

3, 2, 1,0

Earler this week I set my electric razor to a 3.  Then this morning on my birthday I set it to 2, 1, and finally 0 (just the razor).  I wanted to capture what my face would look like at each step of shaving history.  Most of all I wanted to see my full shaved face on my birthday, though I razored my head too.  Now it's just bald with a light spackling of white and grey...like light dirty snow fall in the beginning of summer.  I left my eyebrows.  Somehow they're the only thing that's brown...with dispatches of white.  My face is no longer itchy, particularly under my chinny chin chin...though it's red because I safety razored it too close.  I must have been thinking that if I shaved it closer, I would shave the itchiness away.  Now my chin is all red, like the hole in my chin was drinking too much.  I guess I wanted to try a new look on my birthday...and metaphorically I want to start that by having my whole face and head exposed to the elements...see what seeps through and what it becomes in the future. 

Hernia recovery zone

Night five in the hernia recovery zone.  I took a shower for the first time since Tuesday, cleaned place for the first time since...  We won't go into that.  I think I got tired of smelling my pajamas.  So I did a load of laundry, changed into real clothes, had real meals today.  Usually I've just had nuts, bananas, and pills.  I guess that explains a lot.  My appetite is back though I'm still icing myself.  I think that's why I took a shower...to wash the icing off.  Now I'm lower cholesterol.  Maybe the upped dosage of Oxycodone is making me loopy...though I'm getting lost of rest.  I finally broke through from my place of confinement from Herniacane Dan...and took about a half mile walk.  I understand now why the jock strap and lots of icing.  I know...TMI  Speaking of TMI, I had my first bowel movement in four days.  I guess I'm eating enough now.  I officially sound old now...getting excited about a bowel movement.  I was warned by an older poet who has been through many surgeries that this day would come.  Time to finish this blog, have my nuts and Oxycodone, read, and sleep.  I'm supposed to have food with medication but I'm already bananas and nuts.

Vacuum cleaner RIP

I think I killed my vacuum cleaner.  That's probably a good thing.  I think most people clean their place once a day, a week, a month, a year.  For me it's been...well...I won't say.  But I feel better about my place.  I threw out a bunch of papers and put my "lost" books in their shelves.  The bathroom and the kitchen are cleaned up.  I swept everything onto the rugs.  Then I turned on the vacuum cleaner.  It wasn't long before it started to whine.  Then it started to smell like burned rubber.  I continued to vacuum.  Finally as it began to lose power, the whine turned to a whimper.  I made it clean up a few last clumps.  It's my mother's old upright Hoover vacuum cleaner.  Time to get something new.  Who knows...Maybe it will encourage me to clean more often.  Still have a lot more to do, but it feels manageable now.  I have the windows open now to get rid of that burned rubber smell.  I think it's the smell of guilt...

Dead End In Norvelt

That's been my surgery recovery book.  It's the 2012 Newbery winner by Jack Gantos.  I've been reading his books for years and am embarrassed to admit I finally realized he won the Newbery for this book about three weeks ago.  They announced the Newbery nearly six months ago.  I heard about it first during an radio piece on Jack Gantos.  Then I bought it a week ago. It's a very strange book to finish reading while recovering from a hernia operation.  It's morbid yet incredibly funny.  It's wildly creative yet filled with interesting historical facts that weave a madcap plot that seems true.  I don't want to give away the morbid yet poignant joys of this book.  Just read it.  There's a good reason it won this year.  There were many times in this book where I had to hold back laughter, because I didn't want any stitches to come loose.  If you've never read any Jack Gantos, I suggest reading any of the "Joey Pigza" books...a kid with ADHD and and an incredible set of characters.  Having read "Dead End in Norvelt", I see Jack Gantos' style in all his characters.  He knows how to tell a great story.  I also highly recommend his 1993 memoir "A Hole in My Life"...which in some ways feels like a very frank yet funny account of his later years.  With everything that has gone wrong in his life, Jack Gantos has a great sense of humor.