I'm back and more or less in one piece after what may have been the briefest and most intense, physically and emotionally demanding trip I've ever taken.
First off, the weeks leading up to it were intense. Will I go? Can I go? How can I go? Will I have a vertigo attack that day? Will I fly? Can I fly? Will Ben drive me? Where will we stay? How can we do this? And so on and so forth, with lots of it's on, no it's off. I can, no I can't. Back and forth up to the very last minute. I was all primed to fly on Friday when our babysitter bagged out, which meant that I couldn't fly after all, because there would be no one to take care of the kids while I was on a plane and Ben was in a conference. So at that point, I waved the white flag, said I give up. I can't go. It's one barrier too many. I'm too sick. I'm too scared. And I just can't get the fucking thing to work.
However, Ben, who was on the emotional roller coaster with me, persuaded me to try one more angle. Change my flight and fly on Saturday. He convinced me that if I didn't go I would regret it, feel paralyzed by my condition, feel horribly left out, and not get the support and connection I need with my old friends who are also struggling with the guilt and grief of having a friend kill himself. I DID need to go. That much is true. That's why I kept trying to go against all logic. I needed to go. I needed to meet everyone on the steps of Low Library at 5:00 on Sunday August 16th. So I went.
I arranged for wheelchairs at all possible points, in case I was incapacitated by dizziness at that particular moment. My prime number one fear was getting off the plane in New York. I couldn't estimate how the flight itself would affect me, and the idea of being too ill to stand, with people swarming around me, all by myself, carrying a bag, was really quite terrifying. I figured that at least if I had a wheelchair I could make it to a cab. And once in a cab, i could make it to Ben's sister Kate's house. And once there, I could collapse.
I was doing all right when Ben dropped me off at the airport. The security lady in Akron (I shouldn't reveal this) let me through with 3.5 oz of deodorant, when the limit was 3.4. (Likely I could make a bomb out of the extra .10 oz!) No one cared about my — hello– metal cane! I got through security without getting too dizzy, but then I had to stand on this loathesome jetway for some eternity, in the heat, being jiggled, such that when I got to my seat I was kind of ill. When I noticed that I couldn't bear the little curtain wafting in the breeze in front of me, I decided that I was in no shape to be in plane about to take off. But I was prepared: I snapped off a tiny fragment of my powerful antivert pill (I can only take half if I want to remain conscious), and popped in my air-pressure regulating ear plugs. (My peeps in the Dizzy Lounge told me to do this.) And it was fine. I listened to a podcast. The flight is only one hour. The weather was fine, no bumps. I landed and walked off the plane under my own power, waved off the lady with the wheelchair. The cab ride to Kate's house was also amazingly routine. I felt a little weird, being on drugs and all, but it was okay.
The next morning I headed to my friend Colin's house, where I got to spend time with my old Vassar friends. Colin and his Iman-like beautiful wife Donna have stunning little dumpling baby called Inigo (like Indigo, without the D), who is by far the fattest most toothless and grinning little pumpkin you'd ever want to meet. My old friend Amy was also there, with her little beautiful toddler Sebastian. Upon greeting me, she said, "I should warn you that my child is likely to tell you to 'go away' or possibly even 'go away down the drain!'" I said, "Well, if my child were here he'd probably tell you 'I'm gonna punch you in the face!' or call you "You dummy'" (Indeed, Elias is on a role with these remarks, and won't stop staying this to everyone and thing 24/7. "I'm gonna punch that house in that face!" "I'm gonna punch that mosquito in the face!" ad nauseum.) Donna touched and flattered me no end, by telling me that she's read my entire blog!! All six years of it!! "I laughed and I cried!" she said. Really, this is the best review I've ever had and will probably ever have in my life. She has to be my most devoted fan. I think it runs to 300-400 pages by now! And retention? She knew my new doctor's name.
Anyway, we had a lovely afternoon hanging out and talking and catching up after not having seen each other for a year or so. However, as the time to go to Columbia approached, I began to feel dizzy. When my friend Laura arrived (meeting me to take a cab up to Columbia together), I had to take another half an antivert. This took a while to kick in. I realized that I had been talking, interacting, in a visually stimulating world for hours on end with no break, and that it was coming up to time to go and I was too dizzy. I went into the bedroom and tried to calm down. However, I was not calm. I was panicked. I tried to slow my breathing. But the pictures, damn them, started moving slowly across the yellow walls. The dresser knobs began to vibrate, then dance. The bed rocked side to side. And all the while I was thinking, NO. Just NO. Don't do this now. I need to be on the steps of Low Library at 5:00 and it's now 4:15 and I have come this far and I can't let this happen. The internal struggle of "I must get there after coming all this way." vs. "I can't tolerate a still quiet room… how can I ride all the way from the East Village to the Upper West Side in a yellow cab?" was agonizing.
But I think the antivert took hold at that point. I got myself sitting up. Soon I managed to walk into the other room, where my concerned friends were all waiting for me. Shortly I burst into tears and had a brief nervous break-down. Part of it, I think, was the Andrew thing itself. Why did Andrew kill himself? How come he had to die? All that was washing over me intensely at the same time as the dread of lying on the pavement in the middle of New York was also quite intense.
My friend Laura talked me down. "What's the worst that could happen?" she asked. "That I would throw up in the cab," I replied. "Okay, let's plan for that." Colin and Donna bustled around, getting me big ziplock bags, Kleenex, and baby wipes. Thus armored, Laura and I proceeded out into the bright, sweltering, busy city. Laura delicately implied– with the utmost tact and gentleness– that it was inconsiderate to lose hold of myself like that, and so I made sure not to anymore– even though the cab we got was surely the worst in New York. I mean, they all drive like maniacs, that's a given. But this one, and in my condition, was clearly especially bad. The swerving! The lurching! The slamming on of brakes! After one especially chilling near miss, Laura began to badger the driver. She made him drink water. She kept her eye on him the whole rest of the drive. I couldn't see this from where I was sitting, thank god, but later she told me that he was literally punching himself in the face!! to stay awake. I asked whether he was drunk, and she said that he looked to have stayed up all night drinking and was now just exhausted.
So. On that note, I arrived there– there at Columbia. So lovely there. I could walk, although sturdily braced on Laura's slim arm. We found our friends up on the plaza area in front of Dodge Hall– where some 15 years ago we all spent many, many happy, sad, frustrating, rewarding, challenging hours analyzing each other's writing. People kept showing up, hugging, exclaiming over each other. The roster: Laura, Helene, me, Jerome, Jim Gould, Andrew's old girlfriend Sara, Read & Jennie and their 9ish son Lake, Jim S., and Jodi. Trying to get 10 MFAs to make a plan in an interesting process, but shortly we made our way to an Ethiopian restaurant about ten blocks down. I had a big studly escort in Jim Gould, who carried my bag for me and let me hold on to his arm as we made our way across the plaza. After walking for ten feet on Amsterdam, a slight downhill grade, I could see that it was impossible, and Jim got us a cab. He insisted on paying, claiming that the slope was driving him crazy too…
After we got settled at the restaurant, people started bringing out whatever they brought to share. I brought something to read about suicide that Andrew had actually sent me, which was utterly depressing, but perhaps clarifying. Helene read a beautiful, surprisingly happy, passage from one of Andrew's favorite books, Sophie's Choice. Jim passed around all sorts of old snapshots of various parties and get togethers back in the day. We all looked so young! In so many pictures, Andrew was beaming and giving the thumbs up. One picture showed him and some others on a roof top at Columbia, where they were not supposed to be. (Looking down they could see the tiny security team running towards the building!) The mood went quickly from uproarious to desperately sad. Several of us were crying when the food came. At other times, I think our noise level was probably overwhelming the whole place. A vasectomy story made me laugh until my sides literally hurt. There was sort of the eerie feeling of not knowing what to do, what should we DO to somehow mark this event. No one knew. But we all had an overwhelming instinct to at least be together. Be with others who are also as upset and also don't know what to do to cope with the fact that this has happened. It was balm. I'm so glad I made there, against all odds.
I had to sneak another half an antivert to get through the evening. Seems a half pill takes the vertigo edge off for three hours, then I need another half to keep going. But I managed. If I sat still, I didn't even notice I was dizzy. After 36 hours of no nursing, my breasts were of granite. It was exceedingly hot weather. Coming out on to the sloped sidewalk at night, making it into another cab, was all trying. But I had help, and once I had accomplished the main goal, I felt better.
This morning, at LaGuardia very early, I waved away my last wheelchair. I remembered that my new vestibular therapist Vince told me that the people who heal the fastest are the ones who get out there and use their balance systems. The ones who take longer are fearful and sit on the couch. It's like a muscle that has to be rebuilt. Following this logic, it was a good and healthy thing for my recovery to go there and, however imperfectly, struggle through it. Empowering. I will not be trapped by this condition. It was exceedingly hard, there's no doubt. But so worth it.