This week I’ve been captivated by the story and songs of Andavan Picchai. Born well over a century ago, as a child she had a lisp and spoke little. She had a tutor but little scholarly inclination. Her father (fondly, they say) nicknamed her Nirakshara Kukshi—Illiterate Belly. She was twelve years old when, in a vision, she was approached by a resplendent young boy—Muruga—son of Shiva and Parvathi, who, after trying unsuccessfully to coax her into conversation, took his spear and traced the word Om on her tongue. The experience was an initiation. The lisping, retiring little girl was transformed into a veritable fountain of inspired verse. Directly after the vision she went to her father and delivered her first poem in spectacularly chaste Tamil. The gist of it: “In the beginning, there was only one. It became two and then three and then many.” Many remarkable stories about Andavan Picchai (whose name means God’s Charity/Alms) followed. She was a householder, a wife and the mother of six. She carried out all her responsibilities, and within the rhythms of her daily life never lost touch with the divine presence in her heart. She was in the world but not entirely of it. Her life, punctuated by profound interactions with Sri Ramana Maharishi and other realized figures, her poetry suffused with the strange metaphors and scintillating clarity of the mystics:

We were born conjoined,
hence our undying bond.
We’re as inseparable
as inner world and outer.
It’s time to make our peace, you and I,
to drown our differences
in the sky of unstruck sound,
in the embodiment of the ultimate name,
in the wisdom of illumination,
Only when you are can I be!
Let’s hit the stage then,
dance our duet.

                  Surrender, dear Mind,
                            Go on. Surrender.

– translation, Arundhathi Subramaniam

Surrender, dear Mind,
Go on. Surrender.

I read those words, and they pierce my core.
This letting go is what I’m being called to.

*

During the stretch when Viral was in the most debilitating stage of his illness, I remember someone saying to me, “I’m so sorry you have to see your husband like this.” I know the words were deeply well-meant. I understood the kind intentions, but still bristled inwardly. My pride stung by what felt like pity, and the singling out of my most intimate relationship, and what it had morphed into, as something lamentable. As excruciating as the circumstances were, to be able to serve at Viral’s side precisely in this period when he was most removed from his earthly capacities was to me, a fierce privilege. When he could barely sit up, to coax him into eating, to feed him by the spoonful, to still his shivering body during spinal taps, to hold his hand and whisper reassurances as he was wheeled over to CT scans and MRIs, to stroke his forehead when he woke confused in the middle of the night, to assist with his bed baths, to guide him through the bizarreness of various catheter systems, to help with the bedpans and the cleanup—to be hands on with all of this was a searing honor. At the time, I was too immersed in all of it, to be able to articulate what was stirring within. But deep inside, something in me knew that if the raw demands of this time felt injurious, it was in service of an initiation. And this was just the beginning.

In the early weeks after discharge, Viral’s face held the stiffness of a mask, his eyes were shrouded, he used a walking stick, his appetite was birdlike, and his presence flickered, like a small flame—at once full of light, but just a breath away from being blown out. In those weeks it was still a challenge for him to track the year let alone the month we were in. He wasn’t always sure where we were, when, or why. We had a little chalkboard on which we would write down some of these orienting details, including his latest counts. My little niece, Dhira, took particular pleasure in updating it and quizzing him on it throughout the day. In that initial month and a half, it was difficult for him to retain memory of any new interactions. Visitors who came, appointments that were attended, outings that were made—all forgotten within hours, wiped seemingly clean from his memory. In those days he was easily fatigued, needing a nap after almost any kind of exertion. Each time he woke up, whether it was after ten hours or ten minutes, he would wake with the sense of having been in a parallel universe, with the sense of having jumped timeframes. During this period he wore a calling bell that he would press upon waking. I would rush to his side—my little niece often dashing up the stairs ahead of me. She’d cuddle up to him, her head on his chest, (making me smile despite the ache in my heart,) through our presence, touch and words, we’d swim him back to shore, returning him to this world, this reality.

In those weeks when I was not by his side for even short periods, he turned subtly anxious and unsettled. On the day of my double mastectomy, I had to leave home a little after four in the morning (a beloved friend woke at 3AM to accompany me and my sister to the hospital). I left a letter for Viral with my brother-in-law Ramesh. In it I let him know where I’d gone, who was with me, when I would return. I reminded him who he was with, how amazing our lives are, and how much there is to be grateful for. Viral read it repeatedly throughout the day.

As the weeks pass, we see color return to his face, and his eyes brighten. As he gets slowly steadier on his feet, he begins to insist on helping with the dishes, and making me coffee (both tasks, vintage Viral). He starts being able to recall with greater accuracy where we are and when. He starts using his medication checklist with more reliability. After a certain number of repetitions, certain things begin to encode themselves into his memory. When my sister, brother-in-law and niece leave, it is the start of September and we have come a long way, with yet a long way to go. Viral and I are back in our own home, back on our own. Back where this whole journey started. Everything is at once both dearly familiar and undeniably altered.

As I’ve shared before, Viral in the hospital inhabited a world apart. I’m grateful for the inward conditions that allowed him to be, in an almost surreal way, psychologically protected from the direness of the situation, the degrees of devastation to his once strong body, and the confusion in his superlatively capable mind. Through that period he remained connected to something beyond circumstance. This gave me deep solace even as it awed me. (Even as it awes me now to look back and see how dedicated I was, under the duress of that time, to transcribing his words.) Not long after he was discharged from the hospital, things changed.

It was almost as if a certain curtain that had propitiously lifted in the period of crisis slammed down with surprising force. The hospital, and his own inner conditions at the time, had provided a world apart from this world. As he slowly returned to everyday reality, emerging from the impenetrable remove of all he had been through, he came into increasing contact with all that had changed—but without the same degree of access to the extraordinary instinctual processing and integration of change that are his hallmarks. Where before, he had been protected from any deep sense of loss, he now found himself abruptly bumping up against the constraints and limitations of his situation in daily and quietly painful ways.

Glimpses from fall/early winter—

Viral struggles to remember how I take my coffee, how to make our oatmeal, and what I must and mustn’t do during the span of my radiation treatments. He has forgotten how to navigate paid parking systems, fill his prescriptions and coordinate his disability payments. He has trouble recalling the way to the post office, the hospital, the grocery store. He often loses track, mid-drive, of where we are going. All this, while struggling with the neuropathy in his feet, and the heightened sensitivity of his nervous system. There are rashes, bruises, bleeding and cramping and sleepless nights to navigate. He is often cold and uncomfortable, often preoccupied with thoughts of what he must do to ease these symptoms. He asks what feels like hundreds of questions a day. Sometimes more than a dozen before we have gotten out of bed. [Leading me to eventually enact a ban on all questions until my first cup of coffee.] He is sometimes overwhelmed by tasks that used to be trivial. He tears up easily. Most of the time in gratitude, or empathy. Occasionally from a sense of lostness. Looking back I realize how natural all of this is.

In recovery from a period of profound precariousness he is relearning how to be acutely mindful of his well-being again. Before he can relax into the rhythm of this new normal, his system must reclaim itself, must become to some degree self-involved to meet its new boundaries and vulnerabilities. None of this is easy, all of it comes with a certain weight, making it difficult to be light. This feels obvious now. But at the time, there were many moments when seeing my quintessentially sunny, self-assured and equanimous husband displaying even mild signs of anxiety, heaviness and mental fragility filled me with despair, left me desolate. I have grown so used to drawing my strength from his. Now I need to change this. Now I get to change this. For eighteen years he was my pillar. Now in this nineteenth one, I must be his. Most days I am up for load bearing. On others I feel like a house of cards. It sometimes feels like I’m running on fumes. But in truth I am running on prayers. On blessings that surround us seen and unseen. We have incredible families, angelic friends. We are receiving so much and we have forces beyond naming rooting for us. It is time to pull my socks up and get it together as best I can.

I do so with patchy grace.

*

I have never been a particularly systematic planner. My style of organization tends to be organic and mostly in my head. That isn’t going to cut it now. I need much clearer systems to ensure we are paying our bills, refilling our medications, sending in disability applications, restocking groceries, and keeping track of our appointments in a timely way. We must devise, implement and iterate on a series of new systems to keep us afloat. I create a series of checklists, and daily planner templates, I begin managing both our calendars, and keeping track of our bills. I start doing things that most people my age have been doing for decades. If this is hard it is partly because until now I’ve been very blessed, or very living in a bubble, or both. Either way it is the dawn of a new era in our marriage. In this new era, it will sometimes feel like everything is my responsibility. It will sometimes feel like the stakes are very high, and any slip up will cost us dearly. It will sometimes feel like I have been burdened unfairly beyond my capacities, that I do not have it in me to attend to the needs of my recovery in addition to Viral’s. New depths of grief, hopelessness, and their misunderstood triplet—anger—will stir in me, erupting in unexpected moments, then leaving me trembling, covered in the thick ash of contrition and shame. Only after many months will I consciously register the fact that when Viral’s doctors ask him, “How have you been doing since we last met?” his gaze instinctively turns to me, and I automatically begin answering on his behalf. I slowly and not without a degree of resistance come to realize that I am now the de facto Chief Keeper of Viral’s Memories, and default Head of our Household. Old divisions of labor and responsibility no longer apply.

*

Ever since we got married I’ve always slept on his right side. But now for some reason on certain days I feel like I need to switch sides, and when I do I’m able to sleep better. It strikes me that there is something metaphorical about this—in more ways than one this time is asking me to switch sides and take up a new position that, for now at least, is my proper place. Sometimes after we have switched sides Viral will get up to go to the bathroom again, when he does so I have to remind him to come back to the new side. I learned this the hard way—after being sat on in the middle of the night. I yelped like an injured puppy and he was so contrite and sorrowful. Looking back I see the humor of it all, but in the moment it was all too much. For all the years that we’ve been married, Viral has been the one who checks the doors at night, makes sure they are locked and that the exterior lights are switched on. I realized recently that I need to start doing this. He assumes he is able to still take care of this—and on most days he is right. But there has been at least one night when we left our front door open. These are not huge responsibilities to take on. I should be able to do it all without breaking a sweat. And right now I feel able. But there are times when it feels like what is being demanded of little old me is—Herculean. Viral this morning remarked with a smile, “I can see why you were so taken with the OG me.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Well, I just had everything so managed.” “That you did,” I said, “Even what you didn’t have managed, you had managed.” Now it’s my turn. God help us!

*

Viral’s passport expired in 2016. Yes that’s right nine years ago. Somehow—after his diagnosis in 2015 we lost track of it, and since air travel was out of the question with his immunity we never had the impetus to do anything about it. Filling out the form, getting it printed, getting copies made, making the appointment to submit it today—thankfully wasn’t too complex a process. But there were some unexpected hitches. The passport photos that the rather bumbling UPS store clerk took were not up to snuff. And I had forgotten to take a scan of the reverse side of Viral’s Driver’s License. Thankfully, L, the Post Office officer, had a wonderfully kind and competent way about her, she took a fresh photo of Viral and made a copy of his driver’s license using their scanner. I was so grateful for her manner. So unlike the officious distant demeanor of so many officials in passport offices. Sending that package off for renewal felt like a small but significant milestone. Viral was always such a champion with filling out forms. So unintimidated by red tape and officialese. Yet another area that I need to get practiced in.

*

On some days Viral seems to have lost his axis and his contours. There is a sloshiness to him, a puppy-likeness that follows me wherever I go, agrees with whatever direction I set, falls in line with whatever preferences I put forth. This makes me a little lonely, more than a little lonely at times. He walks so hesitantly and gingerly. He winces at so much. His system is so sensitive and mine so sensitive to his sensitivity. The childlikeness in his manner, the disorientation, the looking to me for all things at times becomes more than I can bear. I tell him all of this while sobbing uncontrollably and he holds it all and he holds me. Not flinching, not dissolving into tears himself, but with a quiet, present, understanding strength. It is an old pattern in our relationship. I am the one who falls to pieces, he is the one who picks me up. And now even though he cannot do it in the old way, he is still there for me. It is almost midnight when my tears dry up. I want to be better for him, I want to be better to him. My love my love my love. This is the journey we are on together. We will make it through. You will make your way back to me. You will make your way back to you. And that back will be forward.

Also: In the deepest sense we are already there.

*

I know I must be patient with this, and not force him to take form prematurely. And I must give myself the same room. Form will find us when the time is ripe. For now I must work on being more encouraging, and more accepting of the fact that at this moment we are both in separate cocoons, swaying from the same branch. His imaginal cells are working exactly the way they are meant to and so are mine. Self-assessments in this goopy stage are self-defeating. I must learn to love this strange feeling, I must learn to see the person I fell in love with and am still in love with. I must let myself find him again and again, in the beautiful, courageous, utterly tender being by my side.

*

I feel like I am always being caught out of patience. In certain moments I scold Viral like a shrew. I must tame her. He leans on me with so much trust, for so many little things during the day. I am able to be patient and pleasant and helpful ninety-nine times out of a hundred, and that hundredth time I am Vesuvius. I shake and sob, and I get remarkably self-righteous. I hate how martyr-like I sound, how I enumerate all the things I’m having to do. I am so petty and small-minded and downright mean sometimes. Viral is never any of these things. In nineteen years of marriage he has been strongly annoyed with me a total of three, maybe four times. But he has never, not once, been angry with me. I realize this is an extraordinary fact. One that I can tend to gloss over, take for granted. It would do me well to sit dumbstruck in front of it more. While he is not yet able to organize himself in the old way, let alone track my treatments, or remember the side effects I am dealing with, his lapses are lapses of capacity, related to his condition. Not like my lapses which are lapses of kindness and consideration. I always apologize abjectly afterwards, always let him know that I am fully in the wrong and he is perfect just the way he is (and could use a little improvement à la Suzuki Roshi’s quote that he was so fond of). He never holds anything against me. Always tells me all of it is correct feedback. It really isn’t. Only a small portion of it is feedback and the rest is just bad behavior. I am so motivated to change.

*

I am trying to practice stillness, spaciousness and availability for Viral. I do so well all day and then crumble at night. I howl and moan and cannot stop the tears. I thank him afterwards as I always do. Take back all my harsh words. He is healing me, even though I sometimes say that I am all alone. Oral chemo has not been gentle on my system. The strangeness of not being able to share the details of my medical journey with him is sometimes just a minor detail, other times an abyss. When I fall into it I fall a long way and am lost for a long time. Sometimes an hour, sometimes a full night. A few days ago in the early morning moments I had the realization all over again, that this is a very rigorous, vigorous clearing process. It is shaking up the root of the root of my security, striking at the base need for comfort and safety. This disruption is to be expected. I must be willing to let it all go. To fall like a feather into the chasm. Instead of flailing like a hippopotamus trying to grow wings.

Up close so many moments feel semi-tragic, but truth be told, when I zoom out, I see a romantic comedy. [One of these days we will finally get around to watching 50 First Dates.]

*

Some days I think about how a woman going through menopause is navigating a seachange in her body that is as dramatic as puberty. This season of hormonal flux implicates every system, it can fracture sleep, create sudden fissures in emotional stability, and flood the mind with outsized fears. Temperature regulation can no longer be taken for granted. Alterations in brain chemistry can make everyday tasks feel like rocket science. Even when everything else is going perfectly in their life, this period of recalibration can push the strongest of women to the brink of their sanity. I was not the strongest of women to begin with. Menopause didn’t find me in slow degrees. It was deliberately induced, and descended on me like a siege. Menopause on its own is no walk in the park. Mine came instigated and intensified by cancer treatments. And layered on top of it, the compounding dimensions of Viral’s condition, its severity, and non-negotiable demands. On some days I am hard on myself, and darkly astonished by how I falter and fall short in so many ways. On others I step back far enough to see the full picture, and I am filled with a tender reverence for the journey we are on. I marvel at who I am being, and becoming through it all.

*

Because I often write in this time as a way of working through internal storms, when I look back at what I’ve written it can seem like life has been a long stretch of rough weather. But the truth is that while the storms are serious, they are also the exception. Most days, most moments, are radiant with a light that is more luminous than I’ve ever known. These days are holy. These seasons, a pilgrimage. Viral, who in some ways has never been farther from his usual mode of being, has paradoxically never been more himself. He is working through patterns and tendencies that he came here to transform. In this time he has had the opportunity to work with states like sadness, anxiety, and agitation that were rare to non-existent for him before. And as I watch him navigate these new waves, I have found myself trying to hold up a mirror– so he can see what lies beneath them. I have lost count of the times that he has been on the verge of tears, and I have asked him gently, “Who’s crying?” only to have him break into a big smile. The currents of emotion never sweep him out to sea for long. They move through him, and he is back in his center again. He does not resist reality. This was always his greatest strength. And still is.

*

I would not have imagined that AI would be such a godsend to us. I dive deep into researching various tools and platforms. It occurs to me that our systems need better systems, and that there are lots of options available now that make it possible to externalize the storage system of the mind. I want Viral to have more access, agency and autonomy. Part of this desire is deeply selfless, and part of it very selfish. I have to keep reminding myself that there is a difference between wanting him to get better in service of his own deepest potential, and wanting him to get better so that I don’t have to change. Within the intensity of everything we are growing through, the vast gains he has made, the enormity of the ground we have covered, is sometimes lost. He is able to encode more and more. It takes work, takes practice, takes time — but with the right supports and systems and reinforcements in place, he has been able to hold different threads of experience across time. The key content of conversations, the highlights of various events and interactions through the day that used to evaporate from his consciousness are now increasingly retrievable with the help of reminders, hints, online tools, and various memory exercises. He is stepping into more responsibility on multiple fronts, he is taking care of me in deep ways. We have spent quality time discussing his deepest aspiration, and the concrete goals that align with it, we have arrived at a set of practices and systems that can support him in moving towards those goals with more spaciousness, even playfulness. The resources we need are finding us in many different guises. We are experimenting and learning and loving every step of the way. 

*

In early September Viral quietly said something to me that I wasn’t quite ready to unpack at the time. “This is what it means,” he said, in response to one of my tearful outbursts, “This is what it means to be the love of each others’ lifetimes. It means we have to go through all these permutations and combinations. We can’t expect it to be any other way.” I am realizing now how I had somewhat ridiculously assumed that “lifetimes” would always mean more of the sweet same old same old. I, who struggled long and mightily with stepping into the role of teacher, counselor, parent alongside that of caregiver, am slowly starting to experience the exquisite, peculiar, transcendent opportunities of this time. I am realizing that I can simply do the thing that is mine to do in each moment, and let go of needing to control anything. I can show up with joy, presence, love and trust. I can relax. There is a deeper, higher intelligence at play, and there always has been. It will show us the way forward through Viral’s healing and mine. I don’t have to rush it. I can navigate the edges of insecurity and my fears with lightness. I can let go of any traces of victimhood– I can let so many outlived stories fly from me, like homing pigeons returning to the great Beyond where they belong. I trust Viral. I trust myself. I trust our love. I trust life.

I will still lose it at times. And that’s perfectly alright.

*

Now we are back to Andavan Picchai again…

“He [Lord Muruga] took permanent residence inside my heart and his presence was felt whether I was awake or asleep. It is so from the time he entered my being in 1908 till this day, the Lord guarding me like the eyelids protecting the eyeball. He has shown me that he exists in all forms, that he is present in all names, and that he alone appears as father and mother, as uncle and aunt, as lover and the beloved, and as children and relations. He bestowed the vision of his divine presence in all his creatures and showed the way to serve them all with love and affection. I found the one Supreme reflected as many, like the one sun reflected as many in the waves of the ocean. My mind became calm and undisturbed, reflecting the Lord’s presence, as the placid lake reflecting the full moon.” — Andavan Picchai

When I read these words, they calmed me down to the depths of my being. So much of my struggle has been around resisting the multiplicity of roles I’ve been asked to inhabit in this time. I loved my old singular one so much. But this time is an expansion, it is even, dare I say it, an upgrade. And it, like everything else, is transient.

Right now Viral is teaching me what I most need to learn. We are dancing together, as soulmates, taking turns with each whirl, sometimes we are husband and wife, sometimes we are brother and sister, sometimes student and teacher, sometimes we are beloved strangers. And sometimes, my heart, my unruly heart, is being taught to love like a mother.

There is no greater gift.

A morning walk in the neighborhood mid-Spring. The angle of the sun is gentle, the air scented with blossoming things. Each step is riddled with many causes for quiet delight. Sometimes these ambulations are walking conversations. Dialogs carried by moving feet. But today is one of those days when we are each walking with our own thoughts, in companionable silence, only occasionally making little observations, or stopping to point something out to the other. V is sporting a stonewashed red linen shirt, a wrinkly pair of slacks (in these years of Zoom meetings, only the top half of his wardrobe ever gets ironed) and his usual sweet smile. I’m wearing a wide brimmed straw hat, a teal kurti, with yoga pants, and an orb of deep red kumkum between my brows. As we loop back around Semeria Park, an older woman with a bright red helmet of hair and two very fluffy dogs catches sight of us. I remember my kumkum and wonder for a fleeting moment if she will find my obvious foreignness off-putting. I don’t know why this sort of thought pops up for me at times.  I have always felt at home in these hills, on these streets. It is not an undiverse area, and I’ve never experienced unfriendliness here. I’m not looking for external signs of welcome, but for some reason I still catch myself idly wondering on occasion if my difference is a divider of sorts. As we cross the woman and her dogs, she stops and looks directly at us.

“What a handsome couple you are!” she exclaims. “Thank you,” my husband says laughing, adding cheerily, “Enjoy your day!” I look up at him — he is a handsome fellow. There is such a robust glow to him despite the deep-seated, mysterious health condition he is navigating. We do not break our stride and I find myself completely tongue tied. My brain is apparently unable to process in real-time the unexpectedness of a warm compliment where it had subconsciously anticipated a silent rebuff. As we continue walking I feel a particular kind of joy bubbling up in me– it stems from the pleasurable feeling of having an unspoken cynical assumption of one’s own proven wrong by the world. It makes me want to skip like a child, and wish I’d had the presence of mind to tell the woman how beautiful her dogs are.

***

The finches are building their annual nest under the eaves of the mudroom. We see them flying back and forth, occasionally stopping to take stock of their progress with cocked heads. A couple of days ago a large crow perched on the edge of the roof and attempted to peer into the nest. When they are not attempting break-ins, or cradle robberies, I love crows. In that moment  how villainous this one looked, with his hulking, oddly-angled shoulders, his merciless beak. I rapped on the window sharply and called out, “Hey!” His head briefly turned in my direction, before he spread his wings and removed himself to the safe distance of the telephone wire across the street. From there he continued to look nestwards. This would not do. I got up and made my way to the top of the steps outside our front door. “Hey,” I said loudly and sternly, “Do not, I repeat, do not bother those babies.” I am going to assume this wayward crow registered the command, because he took off towards the roof of the house behind him. Hopefully there were no nests for him to terrorize there. When I went back inside my husband said with a twinkle, “Make sure you talk to him nicely, you don’t want them turning against us.” We’ve heard stories of how unwise it can be to make enemies of the crows. They are known to be able to put people in their places. If they decide you have a disagreeable disposition and do not belong in your current home, they have been known to mobilize their ranks to convince you to move. At which point you might need to recruit a Crow Whisperer to broker a reconciliation. Personally, I don’t think they will hold a sharp-tongued scolding on behalf of the finches, against me. I think that sort of thing only makes them shrug their glossy shoulders and decide whatever nefarious act they were plotting is no longer worth the trouble. It would take something more egregious to invoke their wrath. This week among my other tasks, I will operate as the self-appointed guardian of the finches nest. 

***

On Sunday we visit the San Carlos Farmer’s Market for the first time in many years. The whole scene lifts my heart, the festiveness of the streets the live music, the colorful stalls heaped with produce, gourmet baked goods, exquisite flowers, artisanal wares, the food trucks emanating tantalizing aromas, and so many people milling about, enjoying the sunshine and each other’s company. It has been so long since we have been in the midst of so much human life. We are the only ones still wearing masks and keeping our distance, but no one looks at us strangely. We are on a mission to find organic strawberries. 

The stall we pick has a significant line that inspires confidence (warranted or not) in the worthiness of the wares. I take my place in it and wait my turn. There is only one young man doing all the selling. He is dark-haired, bright-eyed, confident and full of information about the different strawberry varieties they are selling. Sweet Ann (large, pale and sweet), Monterey (large, dark red and sweet), Albion (slightly smaller, red and sweet). All three look spectacular to me. It is hard to be a berry, in my book, and not. While the strawberry man is talking, his hands are doling out free strawberry samples to prospective customers,  their children, their spouses, their best friends and whoever happens to be standing next to them. One little boy asks for repeated seconds and scores them. Be sure to tell everyone how sweet they are, says the Strawberry Man. He gives away a rather remarkable number of strawberries in this way. And though he does not offer me a sample (I assume it is because I am wearing a mask) and though he does not slip extra handfuls of berries into my baskets the way he did with the two customers ahead of me, I find myself appreciating his way. 

I want to be that kind of person in the world when I grow up. The kind who keeps no accounts, while casually slipping sweetness into the lives of all the people who come her way.

“Where is it?” She wondered aloud. “Where is what?” He asked. “My wherewithal,” she said, “I can’t seem to find it. Instead all I’ve got, is wherewithnaught.”

Yesterday our garage door stopped working properly. Everytime we clicked the button to close it, it would swing down — slower than usual, and once it had closed, it would immediately– as if startled by contact with the ground– swing up and slowly open again. I called a Garage Door Repair company, “Pain-Free Garage Door Repairs.” A promising name. And they sent over — let’s call him, Dostoevsky– to assess the situation. Dostoevsky is possessed of a clearcut profile, a Russian accent and an air of disdain. “Your door, it’s too heavy,” he told me, “Not good. Must replace it.” And he sent us a proposal for a several thousand dollar replacement. At which point I began to think his company was poorly named. So I turned to our local neighborhood social media platform, that offers a panoramic view into the marvelously mixed bag of humanity that resides in one’s own neck of the woods, and that also offers tried and tested recommendations on everything from where to find the best gingerbread, to whom to call if your water heater goes bust. There I discovered an array of rave reviews for, let’s call him, Terrence of Paradise Garage Door Repair — and something about the spirit of the recommendations made me trust this man, sight unseen. And so I called him, and we set up an appointment for 8AM this morning. He pulled into our driveway right on schedule, and when he climbed out of his truck, I couldn’t help but sigh a little. He looked fresh out of college, still wet behind the ears. I’d been hoping for someone reliably weathered. 

Terrence made his way into the garage and began fiddling with the motor, the switch, the sensors. I began to run through a list of possible backup options. And that’s when my husband stuck his head out the window and asked me to ask Terrence if he wanted some chai. So I did and he did.  I went upstairs, leaving Terrence to potter about. My husband in the midst of making chai, says to me, “I think Terrence is going to fix it.” His optimism wasn’t founded on much — just a general sense of confidence in the man so many neighbors had vouched for [he hadn’t even read the reviews, he was going off of the little I’d told him.] I refrained (admirably) from saying anything dismissive. And when the chai, steaming and cardamom-and-saffron scented, was ready, I carried it down, and found Terrence had indeed fixed our problem, with no more than a Phillips screwdriver and the adjustment of a loose piece on the overhead track. 

The garage door, like a well-behaved and docile house pet, now stayed down when it was supposed to stay down. Terrence began to explain why the problem had occurred, and what he had done to remedy it. He was so clear, so eloquent and engaging that I found myself growing unexpectedly interested in the inner workings of garage doors, and newly grateful for their wordless diligence, their heavy lifting. Terrence sipped his chai, and flashed an appreciative grin — “This is really good!” And it really was. My husband has a way with caffeinated beverages. Terrence then proceeded to educate me briefly on the mismatched springs that were holding up our very heavy garage door.  “You might want to switch them out at some point, if the slowness of the opening and closing is ever an issue. Not urgent, not necessary, but a possible enhancement.” He could send us a proposal if we ever wanted to do that. Yes, that would be great, do send that over– we may consider that down the line, and then I ask — And for your troubles this morning? Oh –I didn’t do anything . But we’d like to offer you something! The chai is great, he says. Holding up his cup like he’s proposing a toast. “I don’t like to charge for doing nothing.” It wasn’t nothing. And there are plenty of people who will charge just for setting foot on your driveway. But he’s already back in his truck. “Call if you ever need anything.” And then he’s off and on his way. Leaving me with a little unidentified melody playing in my heart. 

It has been a full week — another transfusion for my husband, with the usual flurry of attendant uncertainties. New details to be coordinated with his hematologist, the Ayurvedic specialist and a specialized health coach we have just engaged. Rainstorms barreling through the Bay Area — felling trees, flooding roads, closing highways. Dance classes every evening. A gas furnace that is being replaced with a heat pump, work trucks in and out of the driveway each day. Enormous camellias impossibly red and frilly bursting into bloom in the backyard. The maple trees are leafing. Wildflowers are preparing to take over the garden stairs. Interviews and workshops being planned for and run, alongside a series of circle-dialogs — the latest one focused on a lighthouse of a couple. Navigating a complex form of cancer with breathtaking grace and an astonishing willingness to investigate life for what truly matters. For how to make good on the moments, regardless of however many there are of them left. The days have been so full and so heightened, I didn’t realize I was teetering on a brink until that garage door refused to close. A mechanical failure that in an alternate universe would have been just that. In this universe it felt more personal somehow — yet another unnecessary and ill-timed reminder– that things fall apart. 

Most days I can live with the inevitable truth of that, even smile at it peaceably. At other times it feels utterly untenable. A wretched arrangement– a contract that should have been shredded on sight, instead of signed and notarized by whoever was in charge of Reality when this whole parade began. At such times the tiniest crack can turn into an abyss, wide enough to swallow me whole. And the wonder of it is, in such times the slenderest thread of human goodness can turn into a cable, resilient enough to pull me out, and set my feet gently back on the plank. That’s what Rose Wilder called it. “Life is,” she wrote, “a thin narrowness of taken-for-granted, a plank over a canyon in a fog.” 

Somedays I discover, even a plank, is wide enough to dance on.