R.I.P., John Prine

John Prine's songs told the story of my life (really all of our lives, I bet) armed with a crystal ball and a magical rearview mirror with perfect vision. He was the troubadour through every romance I've had--the soundtrack to so many moments-- the sad and the jubilant, the sorry and the unforgiven, the transcendent and the earthly.

"How the hell can a person go to work in the morning, and come home in the evening and have nothing to say?" The Someone and I shook our heads over that line a million times, stunned by it, thanking our lucky stars we weren't like that. Until we were. The last few years of the marriage there could not have been a more perfect  description of our lives.

I saw John Prine for the first time in Knoxville in 1974. Life was messy that year. Back from a year backpacking through Europe, too broke to go back to college, feeling unwelcome in my mom's house since she'd remarried, I went down to Knoxville to stay with a friend and got a job as an art model at the university there. For the Freshman drawing classes, it was required that I wear a leotard and chalk a mark to show where my navel was. For the older students, I modeled nude, as is the normal procedure for figure drawing classes. I sold my blood plasma for extra cash in Knoxville. It was a great scheme. Until it wasn't. With two sources of income, I could afford to buy a ticket to John Prine. I didn't even know who he was. My friend said he was good. He sat alone on stage on a wooden stool with a six pack of beer at his feet, every now and then prying the top off a fresh one. As I recall it in my mind's eye, he was in the center of a pool of light. The theater was silent, transfixed, that golden light spreading, enveloping every heart in the room.

I last saw John Prine in June of 2011 at the Orpheum Theater in downtown L.A. for Dan's birthday. The night was a marvel. How the hell could a person write so damn many great songs? Two days later I got on a plane to Minneapolis to do stuff at my condo in St. Paul. Closets, shelves for the pantry. I imagined living in Minnesota someday. The next week I went out to Baltimore to see my mom who was living with my brother and his girlfriend. My mother was still recovering after almost dying after her lung cancer surgery. My brother was having a hip replacement. Every night I listened to music before I went to sleep. I know Prine was on that soundtrack.

For the past few years a friend and I have regularly checked John Prine's schedule, hoping to catch him somewhere. It never worked out. Somehow he released an album in 2018 that I missed. I bought it today. I'm gonna take it one song at a time. I've started with the last song. It's called "When I Get to Heaven."

Last Call

The final batch

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I ration my mom's martini intake. I mix up a batch, then pour a single martini into each jam jar and lock them away. For this batch I carefully counted out the jars we'll need to get us to our departure date. Who needs x-es on calendar squares? We have mixed drinks.

Just a bit ago, I got the automated call from the sheriff's office regarding the tsunami. We are not being asked to evacuate. Which is good. Very good. I gasped though as the message unfurled. 8.3 magnitude earthquake in Chile. Tsunami forming. Holy crap. I stopped breathing for a minute as I imagined waking my mom and getting her into the car and remembering to put the wheel chair in the car, in case the traffic jammed in a mass exodus and we had to run for it.

There's still quite a bit of martini mixed up in that gin bottle. Note to self: if you do have to evacuate, take the bottle!

My mom continues to talk about going home. I think she will get lots of visitors. Tonight at dinner she reviewed her burial plans: she wants to be cremated and then have the ashes buried in my father's grave. She has a plot next to his that I guess was purchased for her at the same time his was, but she's very clear that she does not want to be buried there. I assured her that I understood. That other grave though--she's obsessed with it. It shouldn't go to waste, she says. We own it. I should be buried there, she says. Or my brother should be buried there--it drives her crazy that good money was spent on it and no one has plans to rest eternally there.

What are you going to do with your body? she asked. I told her that I was going to be cremated and leave instructions for my children to deposit the ashes in the Mississippi, the Seine and the Aegean. I hope they'll take those trips together. Then again, who knows, maybe I'll change my mind about all of that. It would be nice if I had a good 20 or so years to think about that.

Friday Morning Beach Report/ Report from Pillville

Sometimes I smell the bodies before I get close enough to the water to see them. A couple of days ago, I came upon four in a walk that was barely a mile, one so emaciated it looked like a sea serpent.  Sea lions are starving. Last year I saw quite a few pups and juveniles awaiting rescue. This year it's mostly bodies. Someone told me about the northern elephant seal pup that washed up yesterday. It was alive, she said, but didn't look good. This morning I came across the sign and the orange tape. Normally, elephant seals aren't this far south.

Also on this morning's walk, I saw a back hoe dig a big hole and mound up some sand. I guess this is how the dead ones are buried. It being Easter weekend and all, I suppose there's some concern about freaking out the tourists. Maybe we should put up signs marking all the spots where sea lions died. So people know and we can all freak out communally. There's a large sea lion colony in the islands. Maybe they'll survive this crisis.

As for life in Pillville, we have an assessment scheduled with a hospice nurse. Nothing has changed dramatically with my mom, but her slow motion slide inches downward. A walker instead of her cane. More pain. Less energy. But odd as it may sound, we're happy enough here in Pillville. Yesterday friends came by to drink champagne. They're all so pretty, my mom told me afterwards. She wanted to know if they all had husbands. No, I said, oversimplifying things quite a bit. I knew where the discussion was headed, so I changed the subject. I think if I hadn't, she would have told me once again I should have a husband--or at least a man in my life. I'd love to fall in love, but I don't think I'm ready. And I absolutely can't imagine how a man would fit into life here in Pillville. He'd have to be a saint. That's not exactly what I'm looking for.

"I'm no saint. I got papers to prove I ain't."-- fragment from one of Dan's songs.

So thanks for visiting and taking time to read about the dead and dying.

Here's a pure white dove for you. Peace.

June 6/Afternoon

Blood pressure dropping. Blood pressure drops some more. The nurse delivers her tidings every hour. We murmur. We watch. We wait. Lunch. Snacks. Coffee. Conversation. Silent sitting. Phone calls.

Dan's friend Will drives down from Berkeley for the second visit in 4 (or is it 3?) days. Dan's friend Russ arrives, and Will and Russ begin to make music, sitting next to Dan's bed.

Do you want to climb in with him? the nurse asks, nodding toward the bed. Of course, I do, I say, but I can't figure out how I'm going to fit myself in with the five pillows propping him up. And there's the oxygen line, the tube from the catheter. It looks impossible. Instead, I help the nurse with the cool washcloths we are placing on Dan to relieve his fever. Let me know when you think I should crawl in with him, I say. How about now? she asks. I'm still doubtful. I'll help you, she says, lowering the bedrail and then pulling it back up again to support my back.

The songs Russ and Will are playing are Dan's favorites. Wow, I tell them, I never thought I'd find myself in bed with my boyfriend with live music in the room. Best girlfriend ever, Dusty says.

I begin whispering my "litany of bests" in Dan's ear. I've told him some of these things already, but I begin again, telling him everything I can think of. Best first date, best kisser, best friend, best guy in the kitchen, best massager.... Dan's breaths are shallow, as they have been for days. I watch the rise and fall of his chest. And then there is no rise. I call out for Dusty who is just a few feet away on the couch, and she sets her fingers against his neck where there is still a pulse. The rest of the family is at  the bedside now and everyone lays their hands on him. The pulse stops too. He sighs a final sigh, and he's gone.

The nurse pronounces him dead. It's 4:04 p.m.

Today/1:38 p.m.

June gloom. Slight breeze. We sit, but not for long. It's slow motion musical chairs--without the music for right now. We have cake. We have bagels. Lox. Chips of every variety. We have sandwich stuff and leftover chili. We are running out of pillows because we have Dan propped up every which way to make him comfortable. The phone calls, the Facebook messages and the emails keep coming. People keep arriving. I had this idea that it would be just the immediate family and me when Dan breathes his last--whenever that may be. But I've given way to the tide of love washing over the man who loves me. I think he would like it. So the friends, and old girlfriends, and roommates, the t'ai chi students, and the band mates come. They tell us things we don't know. We listen.

And here is a story for them. A blog post from about 3 years ago called I Could Drink A Case of You:


Saturday night after the super moon refused to show its face, there was more darkness. I pulled the mail out of my mailbox to find a "letter" from my attorney which wasn't a letter at all. What is was was a photocopy of the judge's ruling on my motion to recover attorney fees. Denied, it said.

 I'd been waiting since our day in court on March 2nd for the news. I'd emailed my attorneys asking for an update a week after the court appearance. The judge was out of town, they said. So I waited some more thinking I would email the attorneys again after the weekend. Maybe the beginning of Spring would bring good news.

Or not. But it wasn't the bad news about the money that was the worst thing. Instead of days of waiting, I could have used a prompt email last Tuesday when the ruling came down. Or a phone call. I could have used a tiny slice of personal communication--something like, "Dear Denise, We're sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but don't be discouraged, and here's what we'll do next..." I could have used a scrawled post-it note stuck to the corner of the blurry photocopy with some kind missive like "hang in there"--or even a crude little drawing of a frowny face. Nope.

I admit to dark thoughts. I have them. I'd been having them less. But Saturday night the dark thoughts had a party. They wore black and carried knives. They looped ropes over beams. They made tea and reminded me that the deranged husband in Tim O'Brien's excellent novel  In the Lake of the Woods killed his wife with boiling water while she slept. I didn't sleep Saturday night. I sat in my bed frozen with dread. I emailed Mr. Ex. I texted him. Then the sun sort of rose--or did what the moon did the night before--lurked somewhere behind the clouds while doing its job in a less than satisfactory way. And that's what I did Sunday. I skipped a good friend's fabulous First Day of Spring party and drank mimosas in my pajamas with M. while we watched basketball. Then I crawled to bed and slept the day away.

When I woke I felt stupid and lazy and realized I had a house full of people whom I love. I cobbled together dinner, took a shower while the chicken was in the oven, then lit the candles and sat at the dining room table like a human being. And somewhere in there I'd talked on the phone with the man who loves me. He was wrestling with his own First Day of Spring demons. "You'll know what to do," he said. "You always do." Or somethin' like that.  Maybe not, I thought. And maybe this thing between us could be going a little better.

I was putting the last of the dishes into the dishwasher when the brass door knocker that nobody ever  uses announced that someone was at the door. Yup. "Someone's at the door," the daughters said without moving as if they knew it was for me. There he was, the man who loves me standing in the rain with a little cluster of daffodils in one hand and a case of wine hoisted onto one shoulder. You read that right. Not a bottle. A case.

I'm still on my feet.

This Evening (again)

one of my favorites of the many photos of Dan that his friends have been posting on his Facebook page

Rise and fall. Rise and fall. We sit in the living room watching the rise and fall of Dan's chest. We look up from our books or magazines, our laptops or our phones. We all have something we are doing as we wait, yet we all see the changes and ask one another, is the breath more shallow? Is he breathing faster now? Was that a pause?

Hum of the fan. Hiss and sigh of the oxygen machine.

A little later we set up a bed in the front hallway for Dan's oldest sister. Ready another bed in the garage for a dear friend from the Bay Area who has decided to come back down. I pull out blankets for the other sister and her husband who will camp out on the couch. My mother, thank god, has gone to bed. Every time she tells me I have to be strong or hold it together, I say, no I don't. That I'm just going to go ahead and be sad. 

Hum. Hiss and sigh. Breathe in. Breathe out. Dan's breath now seems more like...like what?

At least we are well fed. When my friend E called and asked if she could come, I told her yes. Yes, please, tell me what we should eat, I said, and help me with my mother. She brought the fixings for chili, and sat in my mom's room with her for quite a while. She sat with her at dinner, and stood over the iPad with her afterwards reading and taking about something.

Now the rest of us sit, transfixed--and then not as we go back to reading or scrolling or typing. We sit breathing, waiting for Dan's last breath. So many "lasts" have already occurred. They stole by us, unannounced. No fingers on the strings of his bass. No more walking. No "Hi baby." No singing. No kisses. Better not to know, perhaps, when the last of these things occurs in anyone's life. How would we bear it?

This Evening

We've eaten the candy. (Okay, I've eaten the candy), half of the cookies, most of the berries. It's three nurses later. There's been a sandwich run. Wine has been poured. Hugs have been exchanged and stories told. Tears wept and wiped and wept again. Hands have been held. Hands have been massaged. Hands have been placed on Dan's forehead, slipped into his hands, and hands have stroked his arms and his improbably hollow cheeks.

Wishes have been whispered. Blessing proffered. Permissions given. Predictions made. Love given, received, multiplied and returned.

Meanwhile, my mother is standing in the kitchen in her purple plaid pajamas finishing her millionth  martini.

And I'm just wondering. Anybody else out there have two Do Not Resuscitate forms posted inside their door? Just asking. Just asking. Just asking.

Another Drenching

I'll have to call Debbie from the ambulance, I thought, and tell her I'm going to miss the book club dinner I was supposed to be hosting.

The bottle fell from the top shelf of my fridge, and the explosion of its carbonated contents was so loud when it hit my granite floor, I wondered if my neighbors would think it was a gunshot. It would probably be good if they came running, because the blood is going to start any second, I thought. Palm sized hunks of glass lay on top of my feet, smaller pieces were wedged between my toes and between the soles of my feet and my flip-flops. I knew the phone was behind me on the kitchen counter just a little more than an arm's reach away. But the blood didn't come. Not even a scratch. Just organic peach cider streaming down my bare legs and pooling on the floor. Little green bits of glass peppering my kitchen the way sand glints at the beach on a sunny day. After the sigh of relief I swore for at least a solid minute as I dropped my apron and two dish towels to stem the expansion of  the sticky lake.

I had 10 dinner guests arriving in less than an hour. My kitchen counter was lined with scrubbed zucchini and  mushrooms waiting for the grill. The soup was bubbling in a pot on the stove; sweet potatoes were lined up on the bottom rack of my oven while two loaves of  bread, a pat of butter between each slice, waited their turn. I lifted each foot and removed the flip-flops to shake out the loose pieces of glass, and put the shoes on again to get to the sink. I felt a little guilty about kitchen hygiene as I rinsed them, but the food prep was done, and it seemed like the best way to be sure about the glass.

I'm not sure how many times I swept, vacuumed, and scrubbed my floor. Bucket after bucket of water. Windex. Granite cleaner. I got rid of the stickiness just in time to change my clothes and get the veggies onto the grill before the first guests arrived.

The food turned out very well; the patio was lovely in the early evening light--just dim enough to appreciate the candles, but not too dark to marvel at the hydrangeas, the golden bougainvillea, and the yellow, orange, and peach colored roses. In addition to my big teak table, I'd hauled my upholstered dining room chairs outside and set up a folding table. Tablecloths and place-mats, china and crystal (since the divorce, I have no "everyday" dishes.) What a perfect night after all--a great book (Invisible Man) and good conversation, I thought, slicing into my portobello. We'd just agreed that we'd start our formal discussion after the dishes were cleared. I was loading the dishwasher. People were setting out the New York-style cheese cake and the ice cream. "Oh--and there's bourbon!" I said.

Then it started to rain. Not just a mist or a drizzle. Rain. Thunder and lightning.

I used to worry a lot about dying. A car crash. A plane crash. Slipping and falling while hiking in the mountains. Being eaten by a bear or a shark. I'm not much of a worrier any more--but something tells me I should be more careful around liquids.

That didn't keep me away from the bourbon while I cleaned up after the party. But I was very careful while pouring my two or three little shots from the glass bottle.

My local neighborhood market had a nice selection of bourbon, so I chose a brand called Bulleit--"Kentucky Frontier Whiskey." My dad's grandfather came to this country from Scotland and settled in Kentucky. My dad was a Scotch drinker himself. I like gin. I wanted to buy some sloe gin at the market because the "invisible man" mentions in the prologue that he likes vanilla ice cream with sloe gin poured over it, and book club dinner menus reflect the food in the current book. But I couldn't find any sloe gin on the shelf. They had a lot of highbrow stuff--my two favorites--Hendricks and Boodles. But no bottle of the red stuff I remember from high school era evening drives into cornfields. "Do you have any sloe gin?" I asked a six-foot tall blond who looked like she should be a super model instead of a grocery store clerk. She laughed. I laughed. "Too low-brow?" I asked.
"They don't even have that stuff at Vons or Ralphs anymore," she said. "You have to go to BevMo." Some things just escape me. Ooohhh. BevMo is the low-brow booze place? You couldn't have proved it by me. Sometimes I feel like the invisible woman here in my kinda swanky neighborhood in the big city.    
Nobody knows who I was. Or who I really am.

Maybe this means I'm not listening

The writer's retreat is going wonderfully. I'm with my tribe--mentors, teachers, other writers--and our candlelit dinner is a feast in a lush garden. But my ear hurts. Just a minute, says one of the writers. She's also a doctor, and she goes to get her black bag. As she peers into my ear, I laugh and tell everyone it doesn't really hurt that bad. Be quiet, she says as if my words are in the way of what she's trying to see. Not good news, she says. You have two veins in there that are completely unattached. You could die at any moment. Great, I think, when I fly home and my ears pop, it will kill me.

When I wake my head is stuffy from the cold I'm fighting, but I don't feel like I'm dying.

My therapist told me the other day that Jung identified 250 dream symbols. I don't know if the ear is one of them. But it seems to me there's some kind of connection between the ear and the heart--or listening and feeling--that I might want to ponder. Or somethin'.


image from:
http://forum.wingmakers.co.uk/