I can’t take it
I can’t breathe
I can’t stop crying for my Asheville
I know everybody’s pushed beyond limits
But I’m at breaking point
not one more dark thought to stunt my sleep
not one more bucket of tears to fill the toilet
not one more insult to my body
my hair is dirty
my shoes are muddy
I’m numb
I’ve sliced my heart
I ache
my good nature
I feel slipping away
into a night of endless days
I want to help when
I can barely help myself
I’m desperate
I’m crying
I’m cranky
I can’t sleep
I can’t think
I can’t get away from myself
why aren’t I stronger?
why do I shuffle and stumble
Like a thoughtless zombie?
I’m anxious
I’m tired of bending
I’m breaking
I’m breaking
I’m broken
there’s nothing wrong and
everything’s wrong
I’m so sorry
so very sorry
~
Helen and I
whispered soft encouragements
as we lay in our bed
in the couple’s Pompeii pose
stitched my rendered heart
back together
and it becomes
the first drop of rain
a part of something
rain and topsoil
and it becomes
needed for life
in the midst of destruction
two feet of rain and six inches of topsoil
and it becomes
a part of something
clouds part
neighbors gather
between the end and a beginning
part of something
and it becomes
IT
IT happened
IT cannot be undone
IT wrote a chapter in my story that cannot be erased
IT cHAnged me…but will not define me
I write the next chapter – Not IT
I am the plot of my story – Not IT
I happen
I
“Dear Ms. God: Please don’t give us anything we can’t handle today.”
Sometimes there’s an amen, mostly it’s just rinsing. Body wash, shampoo, shave. A ritual in its own right. Both are repeated every morning in the shower, scrubbing up before donning the gear that will hopefully keep me safe from the broken, sick, and downtrodden that are the inevitability of the day to come.
With my quiet attempt at prayer comes a modicum of guilt. With one simple, heartfelt mantra I am at risk of disappointing a Southern Baptist mother, a Presbyterian father, and an Irish Catholic wife. But Mom has dementia, Dad lives in Florida, and the missus self-excommunicated from the faith long before she died. Fuck ‘em anyway, it’s my prayer. For me, for my partner, for all the Lost Boys in turnout gear. For the docs in the ED that think they’ve got a handle on things, and for the nurses that do. Tell me I’m wrong.
I get to work and my partner already smells like that load of laundry you ran three days ago and somehow forgot to shift over to the dryer. Just our luck, we have a brand-hammer-new student riding along on his first ever clinical. He is so green he doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know yet. He’s never ridden on an ambulance before. I show him where the puke bags are.
The day begins. We get an MVC with ejection at a high rate of speed; the patient is thankfully unresponsive, his legs shredded from the knees down.
Our frequent flyer has an actual STEMI. We run it in Code and try to convince HUC and the docs on the way in that this time it is for serious real.
Then there’s a twenty year old who, and I shit you not, hurt her back performing a jujitsu move a week ago and now can’t move from the waist down.
Later we drive emergency, lights and sirens through rush hour traffic on the interstate for another MVC, only to be cancelled before arrival. We sit awkwardly at the stoplight off the exit with everyone we just ran off the road giving us the stink eye.
Just our luck, the POS combative drunk who knows all the right phrases to skip jail and get his bed for the night at the ED decides on a parking lot in our district to leave a 25 foot piss trail to be seen by the tourists.
That shitshow leads into the 3am, three hour call with the Ukranian ladies who have lost dad/husband to COVID and don’t know how to navigate funeral arrangements. We stay, sort it out, and eventually haul him away to the morgue.
After that and then some, I arbitrate a beef between the incoming EMS crew and the outgoing
Fire crew at 07:15 in the a.m. To keep the peace. To restore order in the house. To get the fuck off shift and leave it with someone else.
I reckon the prayer was answered. We handled it. Best part of the whole damn shift was the new kid shaking my hand on his way out and saying quietly with a bit of awe, “Man. You sure can drive!” I nod and smile, knowing he’s never gonna make it in this business.
ED: Emergency Department. Once ER or Emergency Room, now changed to department to denote the importance of multiple rooms where several doctors can move about with said importance. For you Brits, think A&E. MVC: Motor Vehicle Collision. Once MVA or Motor Vehicle Accident but changed because accident inferred that no one was at fault. STEMI : S-T segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction. In layman’s terms, a heart attack. POS: Piece Of Shit. Reserved for repeat offenders that foul their linen and speak disrespectfully to female nurses in the ED.
Hey friends, I hope everyone is hanging in there. I know sometimes it’s hard to stay positive with so much changing and much suffering and loss in our midst. The storm, or rather the “geological event” as they are calling it, has really been a huge lesson in the impermanence of all things . . . even mountains. They say these Appalachian mountains were once as high as the Himalaya which exceed 28,000 feet. Mt. Mitchell aka Black Dome, our tallest, now stands at ~6,680 ft . . . All things must pass in time, us too! I’ve had a hard time processing the loss of trees from Helene, and we still don’t know the specific degree of exactly how many, and which ones have been destroyed by the winds and flood waters . . . as most roads are closed as well as all access to most of the Grandfather Ranger district of Pisgah and Blue Ridge Pkwy between Asheville and Marion, which includes all my most beloved and frequently visited forests and ridges. I’m hoping to visit these areas as soon as I can to lay eyes on it and see it for myself. Seeing areas like Elk Mtn rd and the top of Ox Creek with my own eyes, seeing drone footage and hearing rumors and seeing maps, some areas of the forest are utterly devastated. I long to visit Curtis and Newberry Creek, Graybeard, Pinnacle, the Great Craggies, etc so I can see the condition for myself . . .
Where was I going with this? I guess to say impermanence is real . . . not in order to be depressing, but just to realize this and not to cling. To cultivate mindfulness and dispel ignorance when possible, perhaps holds the key to being at peace and enjoying what is here and being present, grateful and all that jazz. I’m writing this, not trying to sound wise, but maybe to share how I’ve been coping with the aftermath and I guess to life in general. We do our best to make the world better, to save what’s good and help others, and that is important and great . . . But as one teacher recently told me, we have a lot more control about how we respond in our minds than we do over the “outside world” and its changes, and change it will, inevitably. Looking on the bright side, the contra dance started back up this week at Warren Wilson and it was a beautiful thing to be amongst friends and fiddles! I’m looking forward to playing there with Art, Garrett, and Anna in a few weeks Nov 21st. Also, I went hiking for the first time in a month last week in Tennessee with Jan and Maggie Dog and it was quite lovely and inspiring to be on the ridge and see that much beauty is still out there.
. . . I’m not sure if this post is conveying things clearly but I hope so a little at least. Thanks to all for reading and anyone who has hired me for pet sitting or gigs. Community is wonderful. I continue to look forward to seeing friends and fam, playing music and spending time in the woods . . . just as before.
“Whatever has the nature of arising, has the nature of ceasing.” - the Buddha
Ode to the dad
at John Glenn
with the carseat
on his head—
diaper-bag
backed—
kid in his
right arm and
left foot aloft
that whole
escalator ride:
his shoe untied.
sense the morning light
fog rises from a warm earth
awaken cows moo
there upon the hill
the one adored from below
will the love descend?
We spent the summer
hiking by moonlight
swimming in the lake
on hot afternoons
mountain biking and climbing waterfalls
weekends kayaking creeks and rivers
By fireside, I listened to your poetry
and drunken ideas
embers burning down to ashes
as the summer ended
months later I visited
your side of the mountain
we went on a hike
and took the redbone hound
which turned into a scramble
down the side of a mountain
through brambles and thickets
of rhododendron
Old Red following faithfully
we made it off the mountain
the three of us sweaty and tired
found the road
and started the walk home
it’s maybe five miles you said
even Red was tired
you apologized again and again
a pickup truck stopped
the October sun setting
warm air whipping my hair into tangles
as miles of mountains passed
Redbone sprawled out exhausted
you with eyes half closed in the wind
it was the last time I saw you and Old Red
and as I said goodbye
you apologized again
but to me it was a perfect day
and the perfect ending
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