Here Comes The Judge He's Gonna Help Me Pull Through
(View from the 12th floor "Jury Pool" in the Seattle Municipal Tower)
Yes, I'm on Jury Duty this week; and so far, it's pretty boring.
UPDATE I - Wednesday
Same as yesterday, not assigned to any trials, released at 3:00 p.m.
UPDATE II - Thursday
Annnnnnd - we're done. Released at 10:30 a.m.
My Civic Duty officially dispensed, I walked up the hill to where I'd parked my scooter - to find it had been knocked over, scratching it up in several places and breaking - yet again - one of my rear turn signals. On the plus side, the nice lady who backed into it apparently stood it up onto its kick-stand, and left a note with her phone number.
My friend Dawn's mother passed away early this morning, around 3:00 a.m. with her daughter by her side. It was a long death, although not especially painful, if one discounts the emotional toil it's taken on the survivors.
Pat was a wonderful woman, vibrant, active, articulate and curious about everything. The past several years, since she was diagnosed with Parkinson's were especially challenging for her, as her motor functions slowly decayed, and she lost the ability to do many of the things she loved; golf, swimming, travel, playing bridge, attending concerts and the theatre. A neurological operation two years ago failed to halt the progress of the disease, and she spent the past seven months living with the indignities that followed the degredation of her body, while her mind continued to be active and alert up until the last few days.
She had been a practicing nurse for over 30 years; she knew, on a level most of us never will, exactly what was happening to her body, and she grew to resent the increasing dependency on the drugs and devices designed to prolong a life that for her was rapidly slipping away. How maddening must it be to be fully conscious of the gradual decay of ones own body, to feel and experience with each passing moment the loss of control, the slow, inexorable separation of the flesh from the mind. She occasionally expressed her frustration in small moments of exhasperation, when the muscles refused to move as commanded, but mostly she maintained a determined stoicism; perhaps thinking she could keep from those around her the pain she herself must have felt on a daily basis.
In the end, it's hard to say how much she was able to perceive of her situation, although I'm sure mentally she must have prepared herself, as best as one can, for the inevitability. She was kept comfortable and warm, in familiar surroundings, and free from pain in her final days; when I was with her for the last time on Friday evening, I can't say for certain she knew me - I would like to think that, even through the morphine haze she recognized me, but that's just my own desire speaking. I'll never know for sure, which really isn't the point anyway.
I knew her, and that was enough.
My friend is in pain, grieving her loss, and there's nothing I, or anyone else can do to give her any ease from that. But I'm proud of her for the strength of will and resolution of spirit she's shown over these past weeks, as she has faced this nearly single-handed, and mostly alone. We do what we can, but in the end we have no choice but to accept our powerlessness over the situation; we can only stand on the sidelines and offer comfort and small aid, for whatever it's worth, and hope it's enough.
And of course, even death isn't a finality; there are still arrangements to be made, memorials to be planned, obituaries to be written, forms to be signed. Life doesn't stop, it just pauses for a moment to listen for the next breath.
It's late now on Mother's Day; how hard it must be to say goodbye to your mother on today, of all days.
If you've haven't already, call yours now, if you can; don't take her for granted. Someday, you might not have the chance.
Sometimes the frailty of the human body just gets me down.
Currently, I have several friends (all female) dealing with miscarriages, breast cancer, and late-stage Parkinson's; it's like Mother Nature has suddenly gone rabid, spewing flecks of hydrophobic foam every which way, and they just happened to be caught in the deluge. Meanwhile, I sit here completely healthy, growing increasingly frustrated by my inability to do anything of real significance to Make Things Better, like the soldier assigned to load boxes of requisition forms onto an endless line of supply trucks, when he'd rather be slugging it out on the front lines.
These women - brave, strong, resourceful - have great support systems, scores of people ready and willing to jump in at a moment's notice. They've got good doctors, good partners, good parents, siblings, and children to pick up the slack; good friends to make the excruciating reality of their situations just a little more bearable.
We all do our part to the best of our abilities, and we know the assistance is appreciated, but that doesn't do much to alleviate the sense of guilt, because really, what more CAN we do? Donating blood won't cure their cancer; giving up an organ won't prevent the shutdown of their GI tract. We're helpless, ultimately, to do more than stand on the sidelines and provide emotional and logistical support; necessary and important yes, but still small in comparison to the enormous challenges and obstacles they have to face - alone.
But, that's all we've got to give, so we give as much of it as we can.
Here's what I've been up to on my off-hours the past couple of weeks:
(Left-click the image above to see a larger - albeit slightly washed-out version)
Actually, I started this before Christmas, and completed the background in January. But, I've been sitting on it since then, working up the nerve to tackle the detail work, which, as it turns out wasn't nearly as daunting as I expected.
This is just the detail of a larger piece. It's a mural for the side of my bus, and if I decide it's done, which I'll probably do tomorrow, I'll seal it, size and trim it, and then install it over the weekend.
Here's the full-sized version:
Plus, now that it's basically done, I can move on to other projects.
Like Flansy In A Soda Can, It's Trooky-Trooky-Trooky
Not to worry, nothing is wrong with your eyes. It's just that I've been busy at work, and well - not so busy at home. Nothing much is going on, so therefore no bloggage, which, in a way, is sort of refreshing. Don't worry, I'm quite certain something will come along to change all that - any day now.
The Office took our annual "retreat" up to the Skagit Vally Tulip Festival yesterday - basically it's an excuse for soon-to-be Old Boss to take pictures for his watercolor painting portfolio, and for my co-worker to order spring bulbs; me, eh, it gets me out of the office, into the (this year anyway) sunshine, with a bit of walking around and lunch on the Company to boot.
We generally spend a couple of hours wandering around the various tulip & daffodil fields, then head over to La Conner for lunch before driving back to town. La Conner is one of those picturesque little hamlets that dot the countryside, once the epi-center of the valley's family farming industries, it has been transformed in the past quarter century into one of those quaint little regional "artists communities" (think Taos or Santa Fe, Milford, CN, Athens, GA, etc., etc.) that have sprung up here-and-there like weeds, that cater to the sort of folks - mainly tourists - who think overpriced Thomas Kincaid paintings are the epitome of contemporary art, while at the same time injecting some much needed revenue into the city coffers.
I mean, it's all very pretty, in a sort of "good old days that never were" rose-tinted way, evoking a past that generally only occured in Disney movies and Meredith Wilson musicals. But that also just emphasizes how very manufactured and ersatz it is; the old-timey storefronts get preserved, which is good, but the insides are all artsy-craftsy knick-knacks and tchotkes of the type that can be found just about anywhere a similar "tourist crafts" aesthetic has been created as a means to prop up the local economy.
Meanwhile the fishing boats that once crowded the riverfront piers lie rusting in their slips, or, have been replaced by gleaming white charter affairs, and the Pendleton shirt-clad farmers and ranchers who occasionally venture into one of the local cafes begin to look more like extras hired to provide "atmosphere" for the busloads of folks shipped in from the cruise terminals in Seattle, than the real economic pillars they most probably are.
It's progress, I suppose, but of a kind that belies how much the economies of small towns like these have changed in the last half century or so. The truly utilitarian crafts that once supported these places: blacksmithing, furniture & cabinet making, mechanical maintenance and repair, et al have given way to purely decorative arts that serve no real useful purpose other than to bring in cash. Meanwhile the products the local citizenry once relied upon for their livelihoods: the farm implements, the homemaking utensils, the faded advertising signage, get recycled into just another form of take-away memorabilia for the folks from Duluth, or, Osaka, or, Hamburg, or wherever, destined to end up on a shelf (or worse, in a closet) as a semi-forgotten reminder of a trip to a charming-yet-unauthentic little corner of the American Continent; but with most (assuming it had any in the first place) of the historical or geographical context completely rubbed out, sanded smooth, or varnished over.
"Greetings from Anytown, USA" it says, "hope you enjoyed your stay!".
