cross? sure.

Of late, Laura and I have experimented a bit with different ways of communicating. Maybe it's the distance during the week. Maybe it's having spent 20 years together. Does every couple do this at some point? Suggest they try a whole conversation with only one word at a time? Try singing a whole conversation?

I remember thinking up a cartoon about couples and conversation, back when I was in high school. Had I any drawing ability, I would have sent it in to the New Yorker, despite the fact that they had rejected a cartoon I had mailed in when I was maybe 13 (when it didn't matter so much to me that I can't draw). Back in those days, someone actually wrote to you to tell you your cartoon had been rejected. I had no idea, of course, that cartoonists present their drawings on schmancy boards in pristine ink drawings. No, mine was a blue felt tip drawing on a piece of scrap paper. Here is a replica -- same pen and everything -- of the drawing I mailed to the New Yorker circa 1968:

And I got a nice rejection note. Can you imagine?

The cartoon I thought of but couldn't draw was of two people looking at each other across a restaurant table. One says to the other: "Do you think we are in the middle of a comfortable silence, or do you think we've run out of things to say?" I still think some good cartoonist could make it work.

Laura and I have comfortable silences, and we've yet to run out of things to say. But we do sometimes play with communication styles. Mix it up, fogey style. So on a recent walk, Laura says, "Let's see how long we can go only using one-word sentences."
"Okay!"
"Cross?"
"Sure." [we cross the street]
"Supper?"
"Leftovers."
"Enough?"
"Plenty."
"Careful!"
"What."
"Poop."
"Thanks."
"Nice."
"What."
"Sky."
"Yeah."
"Snow."
"When?"
"Week."
"Huh?"
"Next."
"Oh."
"Avoid."
"Huh?"
"People."
"Okay."
"Turn."
"Okay."

So it went for a few miles. There was a lot of "huh" and "what" and maybe that ended up as cheating, since that way you can kind of cobble together a whole thought. But it made the walk a little quieter and cozier.

That night, still on a roll, I tried a different technique. I tried to express an important and fairly complex thought with my mouth full of toothpaste. And the amazing thing is that Laura understood what I was saying. I was standing by the bed near my pile of books. I shook my head. I said, "Mmmfff mmfff mmffff mmmmmfffff mmmmmffff," with no lip action at all. I raised my arms and looked exasperated. She said, "So much to learn, so little time?"

That was exactly what I had said. I felt so happy and loved. And mmmfff mmmmfff!*

*so lucky

different levels of alone

I posted about Bear's death while I still had the final chapter of the flotation story to tell, and you know how I am about completion. So I ended up rushing to finish the flotation story while we were all just taking in the loss of Bear. You were, too, right?

Now I've been holding my Bear story and feel unfinished about that. Maybe it's just unfolding as the days go by. Whatever: I am missing Bear. I am a little bit haunted by the whole process of putting him down, which was just such an unpleasant thing and does leave one with a feeling of playing god when you have no desire for that role or responsibility.

I do not want to want to get another dog. I am hoping this is just grief and that it will pass, and that soon I will be driving to Las Vegas because I can, goll dang it.

Okay, so I don't have any interest in Las Vegas. But I have interest in the fantasy of a road trip without a screaming dog, which was Bear in a car. Laura thinks his problem began when she and Bear went through a drive-in carwash when he was a puppy; ever since then, he thought he was about to bite the big one whenever he was in a car, and he would scream as if he were in a cold bath without a vehicle surrounding him. Any number of witnesses, still wide-eyed and working their fingers around in their ears to stop the shrill echo of Bear's wails, will vouch for this classical conditioning experiment gone bad. People would volunteer once to take Bear in a car; never twice. Trips to New Hampshire required two tranquilizers and two Benadryl -- enough to make an actual bear sleepy -- but even this failed to touch his anxiety until right about the time we pulled in at Laura's mom's house, whereupon he and we would stagger from the car -- he exhausted from the screaming and we near tears from the stress of the trip.

I have interest, too, in taking a walk without carrying a pouch of poop for three miles, to tell the truth. And in sleeping past dawn if I feel like it. And going to see Laura when she can't come home from New York.

But the house without Bear is showing me that there are different levels of alone, and that I hadn't really been alone until he was gone.

It's not all bad, the aloneness. But missing someone? Missing someone, even a dog that screamed in the car, feels all bad.

I think I'll pass on the dental dam

I'm sorry -- a dental dam? Just what do you all think happens in a flotation tank?

Ever dutiful, I watched the video that loyal follower and friend Marilyn posted following my fiery fiasco in the flotation tank ("fiasco" may be too strong a word; "fiery" is not). Marilyn was suggesting that I attach a dental dam (which, should you wish to be turned off to vaginas, you may see in its proper positioning on the video she cites in her comment) to protect myself in the flotation tank -- a structure designed to effect sensory deprivation, toward the end of total relaxation. The tank, that is; not the dam.

I have to admit I learned something with that video. I learned I am very glad to be out of college.

Apparently I have not, despite my dogged efforts, allowed blog followers to truly know me. I would no sooner put on a rubber dam and a sanitary belt to have a blissful experience with sensory deprivation than I would wear scuba gear to bed.

Despite the initial snafu involving concentrated epsom salts and a vulnerable area of my body that lacks a dam of any sort, I was always game for a second float. I just needed to figure out how not to have a reprise of the inferno that so distracted me that first time.

I brought tape with me, dear followers, including well-intentioned RNs. Wise enough to understand that duct tape might prove to have alarming ramifications during removal, I left that at home. Instead I brought the kind that you secure gauze bandages with. It's half paper, half something with more fortitude under water, I was hoping. But -- and here is the surprise ending -- I didn't need it. For there, sitting on the little bamboo table with the alcohol for your ears (see earlier duh) and a little hand towel, was a small packet of Vaseline which one is invited, during your pre-float orientation session, to use to cover papercuts before you get into the tub.

Though it may be anti-climactic for you as readers possessing a decent amount of collective schadenfreude, with the help of strategically placed Vaseline I ended up having a very peaceful, pain-free float. If you like the feeling of weightlessness and absolute darkness, I can now unequivocally encourage you to try to find a flotation tank. I would happily do it on a regular basis if one were closer by. If you go to the one in Westport, Connecticut, tell David I sent you. See if both of you can keep a straight face.

Be forewarned that a flotation tank is, perhaps like everything else in our lives, a projective device for our personalities. Laura floated in her own tank down the hall from me. I assumed she was doing what I was doing, which was lying as still as possible, trying to stop all thought and sensation. "Just relax, La," I coached her. "That's all you need to do. Lie back. You can't sink, and the water won't go over your eyes or nose. Just relax."

First order of business after our floats was to celebrate, while sipping our tea, that my float was comfortable and relaxing. No pain. Very peaceful.

How was yours? I then ask her.

"I loved it!" she exclaims. "Did you try crossing your legs? Did you notice that you could push ever so slightly against the side with one pinky and float right along the surface until you hit the other side? I did that over and over again, back and forth, back and forth. You could almost spin around! I got tired of not being able to see, so I kept turning the blue light on and off. There was a good echo in there, did you notice? I made some great mouth noises in there. And this brochure says you can use the float time to solve problems in your head. Why didn't they tell me that before? I would have tried to solve a problem or something."

I check her tea bag. Oy vey. Just what she needs. We trade mugs. She chugs my balancing chamomile tea and I sip on her fortifying oolong.

Bear Bear

We interrupt this blog to say goodbye to dear Bear, whom we put down last night. He was 16 last August, and he kept us wacky, enthusiastic, cuddly comfort. Yani married him when she was six years old. Last night Laura and I wept like -- well, like we were losing our Bear.

flotation tank, chapter 2

After your session in the flotation tank, you shower down, put isopropyl alcohol in your ears (duh), get dressed, and come out to a nice cup of hot tea. Pre-float, I was given four options for post-float tea: something like Bliss, Balance, Fortifying, and De-stress.
Whenever I'm given a choice and bliss is among the options, there's really no choice. I'll have a cup of bliss, please.
When I come out of the tank room, David is waiting for me with my mug of tea. He asks the thing I am hoping he will not ask: "How was your float?"
Uh oh.
"It was nice!" I say, though I cock my head as I say it.
Rats. Now he knows there is more.
I dunk the tea bag to make sure it's well steeped in bliss.

"Good," he says warmly. He waits. I have his full attention, this kind young man. It's possible he has celebrated his 30th birthday, but not long ago.

I try to decide what kind of conversation this is going to be. I could point out the positives about the experience, say nice things about his spa, mmmm over the tea. But you reach a point in your life where more and more often the feeling is why am I holding back? Shouldn't I just go for this?
I take a deep breath. "It reeeeeally stung my vagina," I say to this poor guy who just wants to run a small flotation tank joint,  is that too much to ask, for god's sake.
I notice his Adam's apple bob, just once. He pulls up a chair and sits.
"I'm sure this happens with other post-menopausal women," I say, truly assuming this is true.
"No one has ever mentioned it before," he says.
I'm so sure this is not just me and my sad little nether regions that I say a little too loudly, "Of course they don't say anything!"
Now that I'm in it, I have to keep going. You know me and completion.
"After you've had kids, when you lie down in a tub, the water fills up your vagina," I explain to David. To keep this excruciating conversation light, I say, "Maybe not your vagina."
"Huh," he says. "Whenever you get in water?"
"No, just when you're horizontal," I explain. Oy.
"I didn't realize that," he says, blinking a bit more than one otherwise might.
"Yep," I say, finding the vehicle of this conversation has no reverse gear and a very wobbly steering mechanism to boot. "And then after menopause, there's no natural...you know...protection. Like the tissue in there is really..."

Dear Followers, I actually do go into a little anatomy lesson with poor, sweet David. I am guzzling bliss tea and it is not working.
"Huh," he says when I finally pause to let both of us breathe. "My mom has never mentioned this, and she's post-menopausal, too."
"How many children has she had?" I ask, hoping to see his mom and raise him my multiple births.
He calls my bluff. "Four," he says.
"Oh." There is a very long pause, and I go back to my tea.

A couple of days later, I get a brief email from David: "Hello, Paula. I just wanted to let you know my mother has never felt any discomfort while floating." It is a small comfort to imagine their conversation, but somehow it soothes the disappointment in me.

Everyone in the family is eager to hear how the float went, because I had been talking about its approach for weeks.
When I tell the story to Yani and Ting, on separate occasions, they both ask the same question, "So, you couldn't just get out of the water? Are you actually locked in or something?"
"Gosh, no. I could have gotten out, but I paid for an hour, and he gave me an extra half hour."
They both say something along the lines of: "So, wait a second. Your vagina is like on fire, and you don't get out because you paid to have your vagina on fire for an hour?"
"Well, maybe next time I'll try something different."
"What!? You're going to do it again???!!!"
"Well, it's three floats for the price of two. And you have to use it up within a month."
"Oh. My. God, Ma." That's Yani.
"Hmm. I see what you mean. But still." That's Ting.

With Yani I float my brainstorm: "But I'm thinking that if I maybe put a small piece of duct tape..."
"Ma. No. You are not going to duct tape your vagina shut."

Laura and I are scheduled to have simultaneous float sessions in a couple of days. I will report back some time thereafter. Bliss tea, anyone?

adventures in the flotation tank

     There are two kinds of people: those who, when they read about sensory deprivation in flotation tanks, think, "I've got to do that someday," and those that just underline sensory deprivation and study it for the test.
     Actually, no! That can't be right. Because I underline it and think "I've got to do that someday." So maybe there is only one type of person. Maybe everyone wants to be weightless and floating in complete darkness and silence in a tank. Maybe I've found the difference between humans and other species. It's not the ability to use tools: it's the desire to try a flotation tank.

     Lo and behold, in this fantabulous 21st century, flotation tanks have moved out of research labs and into spas. Psych labs have long used them to test the effects of sensory deprivation on stressed out people. It turns out that being weightless, in complete darkness and in total silence, is so relaxing you kind of lose touch with your body. It can help with addictions, with stress, pain, fatigue -- all the general effects of living in a world where sound, light, and gravity prevail.
     Oh, sure, some people report having hallucinations, and some are miffed that while floating their brains just seem not to want to do much of anything. While floating, they are too spaced out to think, and that bothers them. But having my brain lose its get-up-and-go for 60 minutes has always sounded pretty good to me, to tell you the truth. Being too relaxed to think, for me, I knew would be a very salubrious thing.

     So I book a float session. And for what feels like a long time I can hardly wait to stop hardly waiting for it or for anything else and just be floating in the silent darkness.
     David greets me at the desk. He says that no one has booked the tank after me, and asks if I would like to stay for 90 minutes. Yes, yes, yes, please! I am like the kid who is next in line for the elephant ride at the Bronx Zoo. That means excited, in case you are the second of the two kinds of people in the world: those who want to ride an elephant and those who have no desire whatsoever. David walks me to the tank room, and gives me a little orientation session.
     When he leaves, I shower off, then step into the tank and lie down in a body-temperature solution that contains 1000 pounds of epsom salts. I turn off the little blue light that helps you find your way into the water, lie back, and float in the darkness.
     How do I describe the feeling?
     Would blowtorch to the privates be too strong?
"A Bic® lighter to the loins" definitely understates the sensation. I lie there and wonder if I have perhaps accidentally gotten into one of those tubs that gradually eats away at the flesh. I have a flash of David, annoyed that I have overstayed my appointment time, finally coming to get me and finding that I've completely dissolved.
     Maybe I have died and have been sent to the Spa of Hell, I think, as I try to have that experience where your brain is too spaced out to think anything at all. I think of all the mistakes I've made, all the wrongs I've committed, and I'm just not sure the punishment fits my admittedly many crimes. This seems over the top.
 
I think it would be best to have this story take place in two blog entries. I'll leave you to float for a few days. Try to think about nothing at all.
   

   

how we know we are one

Hi, everyone. I know you're there, even though most of you never make a peep. I am feeling extra connected to the whole raggedy human family today, and I can see you and feel you.

It's not often that you walk down the street and know that most people are thinking the same thing you are thinking, but that's how it's been today. Even the cashier at Whole Foods, or the person who is backing out their car as you negotiate with your eyes which person will go first, or the person at the post office who takes your package -- everyone, in the spaces between other things, is thinking about what happened to those families yesterday.

We keep moving through our days, we the lucky ones who have days that are far enough from the tragedy not to be wholly paralyzed by it. But there is something within that you can feel in your belly, and now and then you think, "What is this I am feeling?" and then you remember. The feeling surges for a long moment, like a wail, and then you go back to putting away the groceries. You have a brief conversation with someone you love. It is mundane, soothing in its smallness. Did you give the dog his aspirin? You wrap the aspirin in some goat cheese and the dog snarfs it into his toothless mouth. As you rinse off your fingertips, there is a space again. You let the water run over your hands, and you picture those children, and the parents who loved them, the sisters and brothers and grandparents and cousins and uncles and aunts and teachers and friends and neighbors and people driving by on Route 84 and people cooking supper for their families on the other side of the world. You come back to the unimaginable scene that you must imagine, and you think of the people who searched for their children afterwards and squeezed them so hard, sobbing with relief and grief, somehow both in one agonized, joyful, excruciating embrace. And then you imagine the unimaginable experience of the parents whose children were not in the crowd of living, breathing, crying children, and you can see those parents shatter into pieces, you can hear the howl of their pain and you realize you might not be able to bear what they are having to bear.

It all happens in that long moment standing by the sink. You turn off the water and don't know what else to do than to go back to what you were doing and wait for the next surge of sadness.

This is how we know that we are bits of one large thing; it is this feeling in my belly and in yours. I know you are there. I can see you and feel you.