A walk in the park

I came back to where I am staying just after midnight, after a good day of work, playing with my little girl, dining and catching a movie in the good company of my friends. I dreaded the thought of going to sleep alone in my basement room, and the stars were pleading with me to come out to play with them, admire them, join them. I was cold when I started walking down into the botannical garden. This place is a true haven, especially in summer, when it turns into a magical forrest with colors that are uncommon here, secret passage ways through the bush, and a thousand little hiding places where a young boy can curl up and daydream. I found myself heading for one of those places, which I haven't visited in a couple of decades.

Even though the earth is bare, it is frozen solid. When I reached my destination, I had become tingly and numb from the cold, on my feet, legs, arms, hands and face. It worked with my drowsiness to create a state of comfortable sedation.I lay down on my back, spread out my arms and legs, and looked up at the sky. And there they were. These faint but bright, somehow unapologetically pure fountains of light. And I fell into the Now. I saw Time, churning slowly like a towering steamroller, slowly crushing the moment under its unforgiven metal. When I closed my eyes, I could feel myself peeled to Earth, slowly revolving with her around herself, while hurtling through space around our star. It has been a while since I've felt that uncanny feeling, like being glued on your back to the surface of some giagantic ball that slowly turns as it flies through the air.

It might be true, that life is what happens to you while you are making other plans, but it is magnificent all the same. People will tell you that it would be arrogant to think that we are alone in the Universe. That there has to be life out there, somewhere. "Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, 'cause it's bugger all down here on Earth." But that belief bypassess the simple truth that life is a miracle. Just the fact that you are here is a living, breathing testament of something overwhelming. And humbling. And therefore the arrogance may be in expecting this to happen more than once. Perhaps we really are alone. It just might be that there is nothing out there. That we are it. That this day is it. Today is all there is. The billions of lives drinking in trillions of experiences today, tasting a drop of nectar from their bottle of life, burning moments that will never come back. Just that is a true gift. The stars that sparkle silently down from the void can help you realize how small we are in the great scheme of things, but they should also serve as a reminder that this precious gift, too, is fleeting.

I am writing this with pale blue fingers, aching joints, and shivering hands, but also with an uncontrollable smile on my face, A slowly beating heart, cheeks that my blood is turning red from quickly trying to thaw them out, and with eyes that must be sparkling from having been in the company of stars in the sky while on my walk in the park tonight.

This day is gone forever, but I truly lived it, with no regrets. I promise to try to live the next one as well.

A good day

Last night, as I was falling asleep, alone in a small basement room, 2403 miles from home, I did not foresee that today would be that great. I was exhausted from getting an hour of sleep in almost 48 hours. I went straight from the airport yesterday morning, after a challenging two-hour bus trip and a five-hour plane ride with a toddler, and charged into a full day of work, with long meetings and bad coffee. And I usually don't even drink coffee. Then came unpacking, endless phone calls, putting my daughter to sleep in an unfamiliar bed. And I knew I had my plate full today too.

So I went to sleep, weary and wary.

And I woke up this morning to my daughter patting me lovingly on the face, giggling. The sun was reaching by her through the window, also caressing my cheek. Already, the day was full of promise. After stuffing myself (food always tastes better when you don't make it yourself) and kissing my little girl good-bye, I drove off to work. I actually left a house—a home—and drove to another house—an office—and worked, there. After spending most of the last few years sleeping and working in the same house, this feels like heaven to me. Being surrounded with other people that are talking, scurrying about, smiling, picking their noses, listening. Looking into your eyes. Do you realize how precious that is? How much of a social animal we really are? I mean, my daughter's company is great, I wouldn't want to trade that for anything. But so is quenching the thirst for using words that contain more syllables than two. Then, I got phonecalls from people that were telling me good things. Like asking me to meet them. In the flesh. Not just talk to them on the phone.

The sunrays kept landing all around me.

I can swear to you that the colors are more vivid here now. The air smells sweet. The light is brighter. Everything is so vibrant. And fast. Maybe it's just city speed. Maybe not. At the end of the day, I got a phone call from a TV news magazine host. She chose to ignore my question about how she got my number and cut to the chase: I was a tech lawyer, right? I live in America but flew over here yesterday, right? I am an authority on legal aspects regarding defamation responsibility for content publising on the web, right? I hardly got in my "Uh, yes", "Yes, but how did you..." and "Well, hardly, actually..." before she said, politely but firmly, that she needed me to show up in make-up an hour later. For a live broadcast. So I did. And it was sort of fun. I have done maybe a dozen or so TV interviews in my career, but this was my first in almost three years. So I felt a bit rusty. But luckily not nervous. I used to perspire so much before doing those that it felt like I was taking a shower. One time, the make-up person said she wanted to put some extra-waterproof make-up on me. Which gave me a kind of pale-blue hue. Not a good experience. But this one was.

Then I went home. And there was my daughter. Who flew around my neck, all smiles. She had apparently run to the TV as soon as I came on, and hugged the thing, yelling "dadda! dadda!" I actually hugged the TV sometimes when I was a kid, but that was because it was my best friend. But I digress.

Now I'm back at work, and I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow. And the next day, even more. And the days that follow. My heart is so grateful for these days. And the promises they fulfill.

I can't wait for more of them.

Sun and snow

The view from where I was working on Friday morning:

The view from where I was working this morning:

Outside our room

Key West today

Sleep

I am writing this under a palm tree, in front of our room, on the beach. In the middle of the night.

I can't sleep.

Which is ironic, because the last 48 hours have for me been all about getting me to this point in time. Where I finally could get to sleep. First, I skipped sleep between Saturday and Sunday to finish some work, which I would otherwise have had to do today. Then, I drove us to the airport, instead of catching a couple of hours of sleep there, because my wife was not feeling too good and I didn't want to ask her to drive. Then, my daughter—the veteran trans-Atlantic passenger—had her first-ever lousy experience flying. Turned out she couldn't get her ears to pop. So I and my wife took turns walking her up and down the cabin aisle, to distract her, and getting her to drink liquids, in the hope that the swallowing would pop the pressure. So no sleep there, for neither of us. Poor kid, she took it really well though, considering how much it must have hurt. And then last night, after she was asleep, I finally got some time alone with my wife. Just to talk. She usually goes to sleep not long after my daughter, in order to get a good night's sleep before she is off to work, at 5 AM. And then I had to show up early at the car rental this morning, because we had a really long drive today. Finally, after checking us into our home this week, enjoying a nice dinner at the impressive hotel restaurant, and putting my daughter to sleep, my wife and I stretched out on lounge chairs in front of our room for a while, before she fell to sleep and went inside.

So here I am. Awake, alert, and alone again.

Oh gods of slumber. Strike thee myself with thy mighty jolts of unconciousness, so I may crawl into bed with my wife, and not lay there twisting and turning all night.

My heel and my wife, the doctor

I cut my heel a few days ago. The underside of it. It didn't bleed that much, while I was examining it. But when I started walking around, the wound functioned like a puncture on the bottom of a barrel. Blood seeped through it persistently.

And it actually hurt. I mean, up to a certain level, I am ok with pain. Physical pain, that is. And that level is comfortably high. That is, I would consider myself to have a relatively high threshold for pain. I can work with pain. Talk it into submission. Slow-dance with it. Gently move it out of focus. As long as it is not overwhelming. Now, when I tore the ligaments in my right ancle, that pain was out of my control. Ditto when I broke my left one. Cuts and stabs, sprains, bruises and even the odd fracture, plus broken ribs have all been manageble, if persistent. Also the time I severed my pinky almost clean off, but I'm told that really was just because I numbed up so quickly that pain didn't get to be an issue.

Anyhoo.

I had a bandage on my heel, which I had planned on changing once my wife came home today. I wanted to hear what she thought of the wound, and what I should do with it. So she came home. We ate. Did the dishes. And then I took off the bandages. Lo and behold, it actually did not look that bad anymore. Quite a bit longer and deeper than I thought, but looked pretty good all the same. So the doctor, who had suddenly supplanted my wife, quickly, routinely and calmly told my I should wash the wound in warm soap water, pat it dry and wrap it into fresh bandages. Then she stood up and went to do something else.

I went to the bathroom, sat on the bathtub, turned on the water, found the right temperature, and stuck my feet under the faucet. It felt like a big jolt of electricity shooting through my foot. I uncontrollably yelped with pain, but shut my mouth as not to alarm my wife and daughter too much. I held my breath and heard feet running to the bathroom. I thought I'd hear something like "What happened? Are you ok?!" But it was my daughter. With a worried look on her face. I smiled and told her, as calmly as I could manage, that daddy was ok.

After I had dried my foot, I hobbled into the living room. My foot was distinctly uncooperative, hot and throbbing. I sat down next to my wife and started telling her what had happened, thinking she might have missed that pathetic cry of mine. But she hadn't missed it. And generally wasn't moved by any of this. At all. She asked me a few more clinical questions, and then, when it was apparent that no medical attention was needed, she gently lost interest again.

And then two things dawned on me:

- One, my wife was not being cold or uncaring, she just defaulted to her attitute towards how she deals with traumas, real traumas, day in and day out. She tri-oshed me, examined, evaluated, prescribed treatment and did a quick follow-up. Or something. All done calmly and effortlessly. But distantly. Somehow professionably. I have lived with this woman for more than a decade, and if this had happened in our first years of living together, she would have had very little of her current composure, calm and skills to effectively deal with something even as small as this cut. She would have jumped to my side, patting me on the shoulder, holding my hand, asking me irrelevant questions, and generally been of no concrete clinical use.

But she would have empathised with my little trauma. It would have registered.

- Which brings me to two: I really did not need her there as a doctor. Sure, I probably would have done something silly without her help, like making it hurt even more by pouring disinfectant into the wound. Or scrubbing it with a sterile cloth. Or something. But what I actually needed, was my wife. Someone as startled by this as I was. Somebody sharing that aspect of it.

The thing is, my wife is getting to a place where my favorite line from Blade Runner applies: "If only you could see what I have seen with your eyes". In her work, she has seen such horrors, with her eyes. Horrors which I only hope I will never see. And every day she is surrounded with truly traumatised people. Bleeding. Praying. Dying. This gives her a whole different perspective. I mean, she has kids dying in her arms. What possible right do I have to even whince at this miserably insignificant little bruise, let alone expect her to join me in that wallowing. To boot, she spends almost all her waking hours in that environment. And she does it so well. I am so proud of her. Have always been, and always will. For example, this is the most recent evaluation she got from a surgeon who was training her:

She is one of the outstanding residents in her training year. At all times, she was professional, knowledgeable, trainable, and pleasant. A woman of few words, she is concise and accurate in her evaluations and presentations whether oral or written. She is an exceptionally talented surgical resident and will do exceedingly well in surgery both because of her outstanding surgical skills, but also because of her extreme honesty and trustworthiness.

Isn't that great? Isn't that magnificent? I think so. Her dream is finally coming true. And she is so deserving.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I miss that insecure little medical student, who once upon a time was still marvelling at how big the world looked back then.