Category: Life and Death

How to be Sick.

Published on by Mary Gelpi25 Comments

Merry Sickmas!

I was going to write Mary Sickmas, but sometimes an abundance of puns can be off putting if you know what I’m saying. Anyway, Merry Christmas! I am a little late. It’s been a chaotic week, and as I sit here writing this the chaos ensues. My brothers and sister and their significant others are currently on a search for the best Sazerac in New Orleans. (The official Nola Drink) This means that when we all meet up for dinner later everyone should be good and loaded and the meal should go nicely. I wanted to go on the hunt with them but my legs were starting to give up after breakfast so I took the old lady bus home. OK it wasn’t a bus. It was just a car with my 82 year old grandma and my mom, who weren’t in the mood to walk down Bourbon Street in search of alcohol. Maybe by 2012 my mom and I will be well enough for those types of adventures. Maybe even Grandma, too.

This year we did something a little different. Since our humble home can’t house all the DAMN KIDS comfortably and their significant others and my grandma AND Monty, the siblings rented a house on St. Charles Avenue for us all to crash in. It’s a beautiful house, built in the 1800’s with all the modern renovations you find in those interior decorating magazines. It’s nice. The street car passes in front of the dining room window. And every time it does my brother Nick raises his arms in the air and yells “STREEET CARRR!!” Somehow he hasn’t grown tired of doing it yet.

It’s been a really great Christmas mainly because all four siblings are in Nola to celebrate it. But the icing on the cake is that my grandma was able to make the trip down South from Colorado. She’s kind of a hot commodity in the family being that she has six kids, 15 grandkids, and I don’t know how many great-grandkids. I lost count. Her name is Mary too, and she is someone I really look up to for a variety of reasons. Namely, her optimism–which is something increasingly hard to find and at the same time it’s totally contagious. You find yourself smiling more at simple things when you’re with her, or taking note of scenes that typically you’d never stop to consider. If I were going to give her an award, it would be “The Most Pleasant Person on the Planet Award” because that’s what she is. Undoubtedly. On the way to dinner on Christmas Eve I asked what she wanted for Christmas this year. She closed her eyes and thought a moment and then said “Ya know, I can’t think of a thing. I have a perfectly happy life!” And she wasn’t just being sentimental. She says outrageously kind and positive things like this all of the time. I don’t think it strikes her that that type of thinking is rare. She’s always been that way.

Grandma Bell. She's wearing a nightie made in the 50's. No joke.

I loved her response though. How many times I am asked what I would change about my life, what I want, what I don’t want, and ideas fly out of my mouth like a verbal bulleted list. As though I’d been rehearsing what other life I may want. When asked what people want, whether it be for Christmas or just in life, seldom do people say “I don’t want anything.” And if they do say it, it often means “I definitely want SOMETHING, but I’m going to say I want nothing. But if you get me nothing, there will be Hell to pay!” I’ve been thinking about what being content really means. For so long after getting sick and losing so many things, I’d play over and over what I had lost, what it had cost me, what I wasn’t doing, where I wasn’t going. Like a rolladex of veritable “If only’s” the cycle would start, and that type of thinking is bad news. It’s also really hard to stop. It sortof self-propels itself. More recently I’ve been realizing that the idea of happiness is so much more simple than I pretend. It doesn’t have to be some far off dream. There are plenty of sick people who are happy. Plenty of poor people, plenty of people working mediocre jobs, and plenty of people who have lost in some way who are happy. That says to me: happiness is already available. The question is, are you accessing it? I don’t think this is an easy process. And I think I had to experience the pain and grief of the things I have lost this year. But at some point, the focus has to change, my energy has to change, and inevitably, I will change. Only I can do this, nobody can do it for me.

Sometimes I think the way to handle a big tragedy is the way in which you handle a small tragedy. For instance, when my grandma spilled some of her drink on her shirt at dinner, she said “Oh Fiddle Faddle!” Then she wiped it up, asked for another drink, and continued the conversation. It’s funny that sometimes even small episodes like this can ruin a dinner or a night just as much as locking yourself outside or finding out you have cancer! Obviously the consequence of one is more detrimental than the consequence of the other, and yet the way humans react to things, it’s hard to know sometimes whether someone spilled their drink or someone has died.

Last night as I went to sleep my thoughts took a noticeable shift. For so long I go to sleep thinking how to get better how to get better how to get better because the thinking is that when I am better is when I will be happy. But last night these words occurred to me: How to be sick. If I learn to master being sick, I can find happiness now, I don’t have to wait for it. It doesn’t have to be conditional. Of course I will continue to try to get better, to keep up with everything the doctors say, and make healthy decisions. But I don’t need to rely so heavily on potential change in order for me to start rocking right now. I think my grandma has encouraged this type of thinking, so I am very grateful she was here to spread some of her magic on us and New Orleans this Christmas. That lesson made a great gift.

Health, Happiness, and Merry Sickmas!

**Excuse the Dr. Phil tone of this post. I’ve been watching a lot of Oprah.

For the Love of Dog.

Published on by Mary Gelpi45 Comments

There are few people so understanding, so unconditionally loving, so uncalculated, forgiving, accepting, and such masters of the moment as are dogs. This is why my best friend is not a human, it’s Monty.

The last week has been a rough one for me physically. After the thrill of that post going viral, the prospect of new possibilities, and two anatomy finals, my body finally caught up, and crashed. The night of my last final I crawled onto the couch feeling a little dizzy and a little shaky. I spent the next three days there. I’ve been sleeping 14 hours a night and still waking up exhausted, feeling easily that I could sleep 14 more. Through the roller coaster of emotional highs and physical lows, there has been one constant, and that has been Monty. The day the blog went viral, we danced in the kitchen in a circle. His paws on my hips, I was laughing with excitement, and he was just along for the ride. I remember thinking, ‘He has no idea why suddenly I am dancing and my parents are opening champagne’ and yet he danced anyway. We were happy, so he was happy. If that’s not a lesson for human beings I don’t know what is.

After a couple of days of dancing and laughing came the inevitable crash. Finishing my final on Monday evening, I fell asleep that night at 8 pm. I woke up on Tuesday around 11. I was dizzy, heavy, and weighed down. Monty woke up slowly with me and I took him on our morning walk. Half way around the block I was feeling that inescapable fatigue crawl over me, and I knew all I’d be able to do that day was lay down. I whistled to Monty and we started back home. We’d only walked maybe a block, but it was enough for him to do his business and mark his territory on four different plants. Once inside I ker-plopped onto the couch and he followed. He laid his head on my legs and we slept another few hours. It was like he knew that’d be the extent of our physical activity that day, and he was OK with that. A dogs intuition is nothing short of amazing.

The rest of the week including today, has been a lot of sleeping and not as much fetch and tug-of-war as he deserves. And yet he seems happy. It’s as though whatever the moment throws at us, he embraces. Tired? We sleep. Energized? We play. Hungry? We eat. Happy? We dance. And there is no remembering or holding onto anything, and there is no anxiety or worry about tomorrow. There is just, this. And he does this, so incredibly well.

Sometimes when I lay awake at night thinking about what the answer to life is, this is what pops into my mind: Pupppies! It makes me laugh. But have you ever played with a puppy and not smiled? It’s impossible. Continuing on, even as I write this, Monty is curled up next to me on the couch, quietly breathing. We woke up two hours ago. He isn’t mad that we aren’t going to the park today, even though that was the plan. Sometimes on sick days I just lay petting him, watching his belly go up and down, and I feel at ease. That is what he seems all the time–at ease–and isn’t that how our life should be? When we’re at ease, we are open to good things. Once we tense up, we close ourselves off.

Anyway, I dedicate this to Monty, and best friends everywhere. I often wonder what humans would be like if we were more like our canine counterparts. Not in the sense that we would sniff each others butts, but what life would be like if we became masters of the moment. If we lived without ego. All of us. That sounds like a nice place to be.

I’ll end this with some tribute pictures of Monty..aka The Monster!

Arph and Arph and Arph Arph Arph! (get it? that was monty doing the sign off…you get it..)

lap dog.
kiss for monty.
kiss for me.
throw the ball. throw it!
mm hmm.

 

 

 

Old Man With Grocery Bags

Published on by Mary Gelpi4 Comments

One of my favorite sights to see is that of an old man or woman walking down the street with grocery bags. I can’t explain it, but I love when I see this sight. I see it in New Orleans more than seldom and like the weirdo I am, I stop and stare. Watch them for as long as I can. It’s such a sight to see. Something about it makes me feel connected. Like I know who they are or they know who I am and I think about how small my presence in the world is. I wonder what it is about that image that gets me. But I’ve always loved it.

A couple of days ago I was riding my bike with Monty. The local grocery store Conseco’s is only a few blocks away, so to get a little exercise I ride my bike there and get groceries for the day. When I arrived back at the house I got off my bike and was unleashing Monty when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. There he was. An old, old, old man, a grocery bag dangling at either side, walking with a limp down the sidewalk. I froze. He didn’t look at me, he looked off, like he wasn’t looking at anything in particular. Almost like he didn’t even know where he was going. I stared. Monty stared. I  felt all of the city noise stop, there was stillness as he wobbled by. It gave me that feeling again. Calm, connected. I almost wanted to take his picture but I thought that might be perverted, or worse, make him mad. I watched him until he turned left and looked back at Monty who I felt was thinking “My owner is a creeper.”

Anyway I went in and wrote about that man I saw but I don’t think it’s where I want it yet. Sometimes I feel I could write a whole book about an old man or an old lady carring grocery bags down the street. It’s funny the things that stick with us, inspire us. I’m sure one day I’ll be the old lady, teetering with my bags. A girl can dream.

The Office

Published on by Mary GelpiLeave a comment

There is a room in my mom’s house called ‘the office.’ When I was really sick in January and February I spent most of my time here. It’s a small square room that has two walls of windows, a bible on the window sill, and a few shelves of books about botany and psychology and other things I know very little about. I feel a connection to this room and it’s always been my favorite place in the house. Sometimes I feel I could sit by this window, watch the birds flirt and the trees flutter and not leave for a couple of years. I would think I would grow tired of this room because I spent so many depressing sick days here in the winter, just wishing to feel better, waiting to get back into the world. I was certainly not a part of the world then. Or it didn’t feel like I was. But somehow I still love this room. It’s the first place I go in the morning. It’s probably the windows. I’m always drawn to them. I make my coffee, take my pills, and sit for as long as I can– Until the phone rings or someone walks in the door or Monty paws at me to go outside. I don’t play music or have a TV on. It’s just quiet and it’s really nice.

See? Nice.

This morning started in a peculiar way. First I woke up with a killer migraine at 6 (that’s not the peculiar part.) I took my meds and went back to sleep. At around 9 I woke up to an intense knock at the door. Someone who was knocking with PURPOSE or anger or both. Since it takes me like 10 years to get my bearings in the morning there were a few rounds of purposeful knocks before I made it to the door. When I got there no one was at the door anymore so I walked down the porch steps to see a Sheriffs car outside. My first thought: Fuck, my stepdad died. OK so I may have a little PTSD because last time a sheriff called our house it was to tell my mom her husband had died. The truth of the matter is, I prepare myself for news like that all the time. It was just some idle Tuesday that my mom called barely able to get the words out through her tears that Roger had died in his hotel room the night before. He had some kind of heart attack in his sleep. After you get news like that, the fear or the readiness to receive traumatic news follows you everywhere. So back to the sheriffs car: Fuck, Marc died. The guys face was so solemn and serious, I clenched my hands and prepared for the worst. “Hi ma’mm, is Marc home?” PHEW! MARC WAS ALIVE! He may be going to jail but nonetheless, alive! Anyway it turned out to be no big deal. There is this neighbor near us with a dog that keeps running onto our property and barks all day long blah blah blah, Marc left them a note, and for some reason they called the sheriff to make sure we weren’t going to kill them or something. I don’t know. I went back inside after I discovered no one had died and no one was going to jail. So that was 9 am.

After that my mom and I were up and my migraine was still trying so I took another dose of meds and drank coffee and talked with her about dreams, death, life, all the goodies. I love waking up this way. (To coffee and philosophy, not migraines and cops) I could sit and drink coffee and talk about life and death all day long and be perfectly content. We were talking about my dad and my mom said “I think the best part of the experience with your dad is that he not only showed you how to live, he showed you how to die.” And she was right. My dad did both with ease, honesty, pureness and beauty. I only had him for 12 years, but it’s incredible with how much he left me with.

I guess I need to get back to errands and studying and emails and the junk that clouds up our days. Anyway it’s been an eventful morning, but Marc is here, having a business meeting with my mom, and I’m in the office watching the birds and the trees from my favorite spot. Not too bad.

Health Happiness and No More Dead Dads! :)