Sickly

Am just getting over a nasty respiratory bout. Ticked me off that I got it, being the fanatic about handwashing, door handles, sneezers, etc. that I am. But the week I spent feeling less than optimal was a valuable chapbook. I was reminded of some important lessons.

One thing became apparent. I am so blessed to have good health, to be able to do the very many things (ie, the three jobs, the things for family and friends) I do. It goes without saying that, each day, I get up, I work, I work, I work, I work. Then I go to sleep. Then the next day, same drill.

When my health is compromised, I'm annoyed at my inability to take on the daily challenges. Come on! You can do this! Get over it! Come on! Hate being frail. Hate reconizing limits of my capabilities. When my late husband drove me from high mountain country to the state's capitol for appendicitis surgery, the surgeon was puzzled at my making the trek and asked him "Is she stoic about pain?" My spouse said that indeed I was. It's true. I really don't want to be inconvenienced by illness or pain, thank you very much.

Being sick also made me think of limits. I recalled my dad's anger when diabetes stepped in and set up fences for him. He was not a happy camper and being around him in this phase was not blissful. I remember wondering what it would be like, to have lived a life with no limits, no hurdles, and then to find out that, indeed, there were things that could not be done now. Don't think I'd handle that very gracefully.

I also thought about my late husband. A man cursed with a chronic, painful disease in his twenties, he went about life's work with an amazing optimism and joie de vivre. He just took in stride the daily anguish, inconvenience, torment of his disease and kept on keepin on. I once asked him if he was bitter that his youth was robbed by the onset of his disease. He was so matter of fact: "And what good would that do me?" Yes. What good indeed. There was work to be done. There were resources to be protected. There were things to be built. Get on with it.

Maybe it seems extreme that I would reflect on his courage and stoicism when I merely have a respiratory infection. Maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic. But I don't think so. I think that those of us who have been blessed with ongoing good health, with the ability to take on each day's new challenges, without hurdles of pain, respiratory difficulty, or medicinial side effects, should kneel each morning and give thanks. We should offer our sincerest gratitude that our bodies do their bidding each day, that we are able to keep on keepin on.

And that is what I have learned from a week of being sickly.

The Un-Known

This week I thought about things we maybe don't need to know, maybe the un-known. I say this after watching my mother undergo cataract surgery four feet away from me. Glass separated us. I could choose to watch the procedure either in "person" by turning my head to the left or "up close" by looking straight ahead at the TV screen, where the surgery took place and was recorded, with edifying narration.

Okay, so what did I need to know about my mom's cataract surgery? That it worked. That she didn't hurt. That it was a good decision. Did I need to see the emulsification of her cataract and the subsequent vaccuming of its debris? Maybe. Did I need to watch as the surgeon cut her eye? No. Especially no if I were looking to my left and actually watching the surgeon slice my mother's eyeball. No.

That got me thinking about the pop phrase TMI (Too Much Information). It's all around us. We don't ask for all the data shared with us, non-stop, nearly everywhere we go. Even though I was flattered with my gut doctor telling me, as we reviewed my colonoscopy pix, that my colon was one of the most beautiful he'd seen, I'm not sure I needed to discuss the appearance of my colon with him. I would probably have been fine with his saying "Everything looks great" and not jointly trekking through the curving highway of my scoped entrails.

When I'm shopping, I really don't need to see the details of that woman's body, squished as it is in undergarments too small and knit outerwear that's too thin. I really don't need to see the details of that man's body, who is apparently choosing to not wear undergarments under his sweats. Nor do I need to see the forms of my co-workers who just finished their workouts, all wrapped up in Spandex. I do not need to see that woman's expensive implants, as perfectly pert as they are. I do not need to see that young man's underwear as he bends down in front of me at the checkstand.


There is much on television I do not need to see. I do not need to know the details of daily life of Snoop Dog, the Osbornes and even the Kardashians, as beautiful as they are. I do not need to know how Sandra is doing now that Jesse is "out" with his inked floozy. I do not need to know what angst Jen is going through without a man. Spare me, please. And I REALLY don't need to know the details of Kate Gosselin's new body. Really.

At work I learn more about employees than I want to know, including their sad realms of health and domestic relations, as well as the pieces that are missing from their ability to determine what behavior is appropriate for the workplace and what is not.

At home I learn more about my neighbors than I need to know. Please spare me the late night staggering about in the driveway or the ramped up diatribe of an unhappy adult child.

In the political realm, I shudder at the excess info I receive, starting with LBJ's scar, through Bill's philandering cigar work, to Palin's sad saga of unwed child hooked to a narcissistic stud.

Spare me, please.

I think of a mentor I had in graduate school, a very reserved, pretty much up-tight Renaissance scholar. To him, Milton was cool ("bomb"). To him, Herrick was racily erotic. To him, the courtly love tradition was where it's at. I savored his observations, in person and, after leaving campus, in more than a decade of joyous correspondence. I appreciated his shock at the impudence of full and unsolicited disclosure. He yearned for coyness, for the valor that is discretion, for the ability to hold back information that may be unsettling and unnecessary. He liked nuance and hints and serendipidous revelation.

Maybe I'm more like him than I think. Maybe the overload of skin and disfunction is more offensive to me than I typically let on. I'm thinking that there is some profound joy in discovery, in mystery, in hesitation. Though I appreciate all the wonders of immediacy that technology and the web allow us, maybe I long for the day when imagination was given a chance to work, before graphic full-face video exploded any doubt. Maybe I long for the more refined, graceful days of Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, when less really was more.