Returning from Purgatory [by Nin Andrews]

It was on this day a few years ago that my son had major GI surgery. A wet snowstorm had glazed the roads with ice, and Covid was raging across the state. No visitors were permitted in medical facilities, but I had been granted special permission.  After all, my son had almost died in the same hospital the summer before when a medical team failed to take his situation seriously. (A nurse had insisted for four days that his pain meant nothing—then his insides burst.) Needless to say, I pulled every string I could find in order to be there.

The surgery was successful. It marked the end of our time in Purgatory.

For two years we had lived in and out of hospitals, in and out of hope and despair, in and out of that place where time slows and sometimes pauses, where the souls of the almost-dead and almost-born share elevator rides, where dread and relief walk hand-in-hand, where there are no hours, no weeks or weekends, no months, and certainly no holidays,  where every door is guarded, where every window displays a view of another hospital wing, where once we watched a patient life-flighted in, where angels airlifted others out.

I still dream I am in the hospital beside my son who is lying in a bed, tubes up his nose and throat, monitors beeping and humming, nurses and doctors entering and exiting . . . Oh, how he wished for sleep back then. Real sleep, not the drugged-induced brand.  I wished I could give it to him--which now makes me think of this untitled poem by David Keplinger:

I made this paper boat for her, who finds it difficult to sleep. She imagines she is floating on its little stern,  here, under her sleeping mask, under the covers. All you’ll need is one plain sheet. It’s folded like the beak of a bird. With your fingers, pry the wide beak open. You are opening the beak. You are climbing inside.  

The world is so strange when you come back from Purgatory.  (Sometimes I wonder if I ever fully returned.) Nothing makes sense: the news, social media, everyday conversations. My mind was a blur. I couldn’t write. Or rather I couldn’t write coherently. The humorous poet I was had disappeared. Not only that, I couldn’t stand her poetry. Slowly I began to write my forthcoming book, Son of Bird, a Memoir in Prose Poems. When I read it now, I feel the presence of Purgatory, the mix of memory and dreams. And sadness, a salty, bitter aftertaste.

Sometimes, I look for books or poems that describe that feeling/space I lived in for those years. Murakami comes the closest.  I keep reading his work, underlying whole paragraphs. There is also this poem by a Danish poet, Carsten René Nielsen, that describes the hunger I feel when reading, expecting or hoping to find something in particular. And the overwhelm I experience when I succeed.

Book

    by Carsten René Nielsen, from House Inspections, translated by David Keplinger

I always rely on reason when I select works one can only understand with one’s feelings, but one day at the antiquarian bookshop I found myself in each and every book I opened. As always, I was only on the lookout for a word or two, those which seem to glow from below the horizon, but what a drama it’s become instead. Now the letters are towering around me, and at any moment the catastrophe can happen: that someone with a moistened finger will turn the page.

And there is this poem by Laurie Clements Lambeth, which describes the nether-world one enters when diagnosed with a chronic illness. 

Cusped Prognosis

    By Laurie Clements Lambeth

Time declines all, they say. Progression inevitable, they say. Hills that rise slant down. You have the floor, they say. How far down, I say. They say how low can you go. How steep a slope, I say. Slight drop, they say. Plateau. Slump, not flatline, they say. You understand, these were words before: up, down, I say, words I do not own but feel I should. Downward, they say, is normal, but plateau is where we’ll put you. Stay flexible. Incline toward this wind. Go ahead and zanaflex, they say. Progress, the way of the future, they say. We are inclined to say it’s relatively stable. Mesa, not mountain, they say. The fall-­off hills rise in masses, flat on top. White clouds bite down on them like teeth, I recall, chomping. What’s the grade of incline, I say. They say mild decline. They say they feel inclined to know. Come down here, I say. Take a tumble. Slide. Incline your ear. They decline my invitation. Making progress, they say. An upgrade. Very busy. Your health has reached its quota and is no longer available, they say. Have I been downgraded, essentially going downhill, I say. A positive result yields a negative outcome, they say. They decline to know for sure. Testing negative, they say, has a positive outcome. A decline in contrast sensitivity, I say. They say slow descent, the good kind. A little tip. Lucky dip. I assent and say all’s downhill from here. I say downhill into the flood. Dive, I say, not cannonball. Controlled fall. I am inclined to take a dip, I say, from time to time, but always rise to the surface. Dip down, they say. Tip forward. Don’t let us (drop now) push you, they say, a nudge. I say it is our policy to decline tips, a pleasure to — Arching off the incline, I incline to a different wind.

Comments

[Grace Cavalieri]

My heart is the test of my reading, and it is shaken with love for this essay. A visceral response no critic could fake.