Birthdays, Uncertainty and the Cyclops, and Looking Forward
- At May 01, 2016
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
- 0
Thought I’d post a little update since my last post, though sadly I don’t have as much definite news as I’d like at this point. I also want to report on a pretty terrible week with a bright side – my birthday!
Yes, the day of the test came and went, the tests themselves weren’t super fun but no crazy reactions, and pretty much the two days straight afterwards, I was tense, waiting for reports, then doctors to give me insight into reports. I was getting about twenty messages from different specialists a day for a couple of days in a row. They gave me tentative diagnoses, made plans, then other test results came in, and then they decided to scrap their plans and diagnoses. So for now, I’m still waiting, until an “Interdisciplinary Board” reviews all my results on May 11. It is a stressful process. I didn’t have an anaphylactic reaction to the test itself, which the docs were worried about – so that’s good, right?
Anyway, I didn’t plan much for my birthday because I didn’t know what state of mind I’d be in, which turned out to allow me to do multiple fun things. Glenn went out in the morning and got me flowers (peonies! In April!) and made brunch, then we went down to the Seattle Japanese Garden where I ran into an old friend and great poet, Kathleen Flenniken, and got to admire the beautiful wisteria, which smelled exactly the way it looked. After a quick walk around the park, we drove down to Seattle’s International District and the very cool Wing Luke Museum, where Michael Schmeltzer was launching his first full-length book, Blood Song (and my friend Natasha Moni was reading), and got to say hi to Annette and Kelli from Two Sylvias as well as other poets I don’t get to see as often as I like. Natasha and I got to go to the famous tea house at the Panama Hotel down the street and catch up. It was far better than sitting at home listening to sad music and crying (which, um, was probably what I would have done if my husband hadn’t encouraged me to go and get out of the house) – I’ve been having nightmares about cobras and radiation (nothing to do with those scary medical tests, I’m sure) and basically thinking about all the BAD stuff the doctors have been presenting to me as options.
I was thinking about the mythical curse of the cyclops. The cyclopses (cyclopses? cyclopsi?) were super angry, mostly because they were cursed with knowing the exact time and circumstances of their deaths. You know, you never actually want to know the way you’re gonna die. Let it be a surprise, you know? The more info I get about my weird malfunctioning human self, the more I want to be an android, or at least a slightly more ignorant human, who didn’t have the information.
Anyway, I’m determined to look forward, not sit around chewing my nails until I have all the answers. I want to focus on the positive – the blooms around us appearing and fading (hello and goodbye, cherry blossoms! lilacs!), my upcoming poetry book, sending out and writing new poems. Saying hello to my 43rd year, saying goodbye to April and National Poetry Month and hopefully less time in hospital rooms and specialists’ offices. Focusing on each day and embracing the good things around me.
PS: Check out my entry on Orion Magazine’s Poetry in the Wild feature on Tumblr here.