Pattern design, I owned, once upon a time.
I perfected cross-hatch and font and ornate edge,
paragraphs and thin grey lines, and color en agitante.
Perfect is gone now.
My pattern is blur and strobe and all fall down.
I will not hate my disease.
But when do I say goodbye,
as I strew and falter and shake away?
goodbye draw anytime,
goodbye draw one-handed,
goodbye draw from any angle,
goodbye trot,
goodbye skip,
goodbye legs in sync,
goodbye walk up stairs without hands,
goodbye walk up stairs undizzy,
goodbye walk down stairs with certainty,
goodbye natural conversation,
goodbye timely wit,
goodbye uninterrupted,
goodbye being heard,
goodbye dance unnoticed,
goodbye walk in quietude,
goodbye stand in silence.
Shaken away, stolen, gone, all those me things.
I will not hate my Parkinson's.
I will just pretend, pretend a fine, imperfect pattern.
I will not spend my final wide-awake days
memorizing what remains,
raging at ugly evidence,
or take it lying down, covered up.
But late at night, hoping for cessation
of hand and leg, my mind a mess, failing to sleep,
I say goodbye to gone me, going going me,
me who was once like you,
unseen and splendid.
goodbye
2007, collage by oblivious me, before the primate of dysfunction knocked me out
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But pure grief. just pure grief. I get to this place some nights, after Deborah is asleep -- last night was one -- and I wait for a bad day to wind down, and it never does and so I sleep an hour at most, wandering the house all night, quaking and shuffling, talking to myself, trying not to get stuck repeating one phrase for ten minutes, trying to remember what it means, slapping my head, unable to lift my left leg more than one, twisted inch, my right hand a jangling psylocibin claw, trying to read a paragraph for an hour -- waiting for 5:40 am and my first pills. That's when i let my self grieve for what I am not, for what I was. I cannot un-see the videos online of the shambling droolers and fogged brains that this becomes. All sue props for how I have lots of years, proabably, with buffered Levadops var & sndry, and DBS brain surgery -- but then comes the sunset.
It is dusk already, and I rely on artificial lights, and they flicker and dim and go out every night. I do not want to be this anymore. Olly olly oxen free.
I rather hope that you'll continue to write of your journey through this little known and fearsome land called Parkinson's. Your writing might be a roadmap so that others, coming behind you, may know what to expect. Or it might exemplify your courage at facing down the demons of that land. In any case it will be another candle in the darkness, dispelling unknowledge and enlightening those who have the good fortune to read your words.
Do it in style, friend; do it in style!
;-)
.
Good-bye my Fancy!
Farewell dear mate, dear love!
I'm going away, I know not where,
Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,
So Good-bye my Fancy.
Now for my last--let me look back a moment;
The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me,
Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping.
Long have we lived, joy'd, caress'd together;
Delightful!--now separation--Good-bye my Fancy.
Yet let me not be too hasty,
Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter'd, become really blended
into one;
Then if we die we die together, (yes, we'll remain one,)
If we go anywhere we'll go together to meet what happens,
May-be we'll be better off and blither, and learn something,
May-be it is yourself now really ushering me to the true songs, (who
knows?)
May-be it is you the mortal knob really undoing, turning--so now finally,
Good-bye--and hail! my Fancy.
Walt Whitman
r.
I think of you, dear Greg. I hope we get to meet one day.
xo
I knew a painter who created the greatest work of his career with his Parkinson's experience. He felt free to take risks with his brush that he would not have when he was a young man. His paintings became about the process of creation, rather than a result. I wonder how people who are not artists or writers cope during such times. With these poems, you are using your gift. Every day, you will figure out what you can make.
I am glad to read your comment that says you have reason to hope, and I'm sure we are all hoping right along with you.
Rated.
"..Shaken away, stolen, gone, all those me things..."
Trully best wishes.
You have written more deeply of you than ever in the throes of your new and rightly maligned companion.
Here, even here, there is purpose. You know it, you write. We know it, we read.
Rated. Always.