The World As Seen Through Movies, TV, the Internet, Books, Newsprint, and my Dreams

I sat straight up in bed. "Something's wrong with Karen." That's what the dream said. The whole of the day was unsettled.

December 22, 2010

     Karen called from Tulsa, Oklahoma, late Monday, December 20, 2010, to tell me a mass had been found in her right lung. She paused to take a breath--my heart skipped a beat and my breathing stopped until she spoke again. "I guess we won't be coming Christmas."

     "It's a small tumor," Karen continued, "Just about the size of a nickel or dime."" At the same time I wanted to run and yank a nickel and a dime from my purse and put them side-by-side, on the table, right in front of me, to touch and see. I was listening to Karen's voice as she talked. There was a flat affect.

     My brother-in-law--Dan's words--then joined the conversation. "It is either a small cell lung cancer or a non-small lung cancer. The doctor told us the area around the tumor was spiculated and consistent with cancer. What will happen is, if the tumor is small cell, Karen will undergo chemotherapy and radiation. If the tumor turns out to be non-small cell, she will have surgery. The last outcome is the best." As the professor he is, I could just as easily have been sitting in a classroom listening to Dan give a lecture comparing two types of lung cancer and their treatment. A portion of my brain heard what Dan was saying; the rest of me, tried to rein in an imagination gone wild.

     "But, Karen, we don't have any lung cancer on either side of the family."

     "Yes, we do. cousin Lynn."

     "But, Lynn's lung cancer was caused by two Vietnam tours, being dusted with Agent Orange and his many years of working in a chemical plant. He even told me one time that because of a work accident, he was doused from head-to-toe with two types of lethal chemicals. Lynn thought the chemical bath did him in." I looked at the palm of my right hand to check the length of my life line. 

     "Lynn never told me that," Karen said. "Besides, everyone in our family smoked--both sides; there was second hand smoke everywhere. But, I haven't smoked in 20 years. Tomorrow morning, I'm going into the hospital for a biopsy. Next comes the pathology work-up news. We'll have the results in a couple of days. I've got to be at the hospital at 10 in the morning and the actual biopsy is scheduled for 11:30."

     "Well, Karen, how are you doing? Are you freaked out? I just don't understand this. Why would the doctors automatically say you have cancer? I know of people who have had suspicious 'dark spots' show up on x-rays and they don't turn out to be cancer. The tumor doesn't have to be small cell or non-small cell. It could be just a nothing." Denial was doing its job.

     Dan's words slid back into the conversation. "I think the doctors are just preparing for the worst. Then, if they turn out to be wrong, everyone can smile and be grateful."

Christmas Eve -- December 24, 2010

     All Dan wanted for Christmas in Austin was to see, True Grit, Joel and Ethan Cohen's remake of the old John Wayne classic. But, that's what he and Karen did in Tulsa yesterday--go to the movies. They said it was 'good, just not great.' Probably an academy award nomination would go to Jeff Bridges and the young actress, Hailee Steinfeld, playing the role of Mattie Ross. Matt Damon and Josh Brolin would have to sit this award ceremony out, as their characters would fade into the monochromatic, dusty West.

     My bet is that Karen and Dan just switched seats after they got home--from the theater to the couch and a pre-queued Netflix movie. Over the years, Karen and I have puzzled the source of our movie addiction. The end of any discussion on why we are the way we are, always targets mother as the villain or our savior.

     "It was coming out of the hollow and going to town on Saturday's for groceries and necessary shopping," is Karen's constant explanation. "We'd get a dime from mother for the cowboy and Indian movie, playing at the Sequoyah," is always my memory.

     Lash LaRue, the Lone Ranger, and Tarzan, stoked our imaginations with enough fuel to last five days to play our Saturday-made, theater fantasies, back in the two hills protecting our house in the hollow. The seventh day was reserved for the Baptists; there was no playing. Later, came exploring the Osage Theater when we moved from Cherokee Country to Bartlesville and entered Osage territory.

     I could say Christmas time is movie time, or, Thanksgiving time is movie time. But, actually, any time of the year is movie time. Yesterday, middle-son, Peter, and I saw the fantastic movie, The Fighter. Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg played the true life story of half-brothers, Dickie Eklund and Micky Ward. I hate boxing. I had to cover my eyes during the fight scenes. But, I'm putting this movie right on top of Laura Hillenbrand's book, Unbroken. Both movie and book are stories of "Survival, Resilience, and Redemption." I think Karen and I are going to be taking huge doses of all three.

     Christmas Day -- December 25, 2010

     The day is cold and dreary--colorless, except for two large holiday red bows, silver tinsel, and blinking blue lights on the neighbor's house across the street. I am certain this is why I did not like, True Grit. I left the theater with a feeling of melancholy. There was no color in the movie. How many shades of brown and grey are there? I didn't think about counting until afterwards, but I think the director called for and the cinematographer, following directions, mixed together every single shade of brown, grey, black, and white, exiting on a paint pallet. The look of the movie has carried into Christmas Day. There's no smiling in greys and browns.

     Because of Karen's news, time stood still--frozen in its immediate footsteps. Or, so it seemed. I awakened this morning with the leftovers of disturbing dreams. There was no whole cloth, only pieces of old, faded, frayed, fabric, alongside new colorful material, with the smell of fresh dye and edges designed by the work of pinking shears. The only way to make sense of this discord was to take a few strings handing from the old an tie to the small triangles of the newly pinked. A few days ago, I watched F. F. Coppola's, Apocalypse Now. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) and Kurtz (Marlon Brando) got right in my face and reminded me of how we tore ourselves apart in Vietnam and haven't quite figured out how to put the remnants of ourselves back together again. Maybe Apocalypse was reincarnated into the patterns of my cloth dream. "Oh man,"said Willard ... "the bullshit piled up so high in Vietnam, you needed wings to stay above it." Cousin Lynn told me such stories. But, often, if you have not had the experience, you can't make the connection.

October 28, 2013

     Karen and I had a long talk today. I asked her if she would mind if I posted this two year old blog. Did I ever tell you our family keeps secrets? Information is both tangled and hidden. One could more easily find light through a Kudzu thicket than fight the way to truth and enlightenment through the thick layers of secrets pulsating through the aged-old, embedded grapevines of our family. Karen and I are still trying.