November 2006 Archives

To say that my father died of a brain tumor doesn't do the experience justice. He died of having his brain expand, compress, collapse and dissolve. He became successively forgetful, confused, irascible, childlike. Then imbecilic. Then not. The last time I saw him he was seeing nothing or everything, his eyes whipping back and forth in perfect, uninterrupted rhythm. He was, as nurses say, unresponsive. My mother thought I should be protected from this vision, a curious comment on my place in her mind. She must have assumed that being sensitive, death and transfiguration presented too much for me to bear. I ignored her, wisely. For better or worse, this was my father's end, wild eyed and beyond everything.

My mother's appraisal of me at my father's deathbed annoyed me then. And, curiously, even annoys me now. She never got it, my mother. Or never seemed to. And, of course, what I wanted her to get was me. And what I wanted to get was her love. Or, more precisely, her full attention, her presence. But this was not to be. My mother spent her life elsewhere, preoccupied, anxious or angry or both. She could rarely settle down and be. And this quality of distraction, of lack of attention, of a general disconnect between one's self and one's feelings, this state of things still sends me fleeing.

And their combined effect, the brain tumor's dissolution of consciousness and the mother's unconsciousness, these particular parts of my roots now converge on Marlou. For my father was not alone in his brain cancer. His sister died of a brain tumor. His brother died of a brain tumor. Pass it on, I can hear the genetic chorus saying. So when my eyesight fails me or my memory grossly eludes me, I get this little twinge of tumor-eating-the-brain anxiety. My father was roughly my age, 60, when he started having the feeling that he had said and done things before. A heightened sense of déjà vu was his first symptom.

And Marlou? She's distracted and forgetful and in some senses unavailable these days. Chemo brain, that's what she calls it. Not a medically recognized syndrome, but one that chemo practitioners seem to understand. Short-term memory...attention span...general awareness...all gradually succumb to the massive onslaught of chemicals. Of all our losses as a couple, this one seems hardest for me to absorb. "In one ear and gone tomorrow," the malapropism-prone mother of a college friend used to say. The friend would cringe, it was so embarrassing. Because everyone knows that a rolling stone gathers no birds in the hand. It's obvious.

And what's really obvious is that one can contemplate loss, even face loss like tourists face the Great Wall of China. But get a little closer and loss can take over. Especially if it's long been a dominant theme in your life. Loss of family. Loss of body. Now loss of Marlou...even though it may only be a temporary loss of attention span...and loss of things the way they used to be. Not that it makes sense, but losses can get badly confused and mixed together. Still, I can't help it, for it's the little things. Marlou will ask what I want for breakfast...then get lost in answering e-mails. She'll tell me her chemo schedule for the coming week, then tell me again. I'll pause for an aerobic moment of reflection on the rowing machine, and she'll ask if I'm okay...and later she will want to tell me her chemo schedule.

And there's something in me that is withering, even merciless, in its judgment of all these minor lapses. She's not there, this force says. She's not on the wifely job. She needs retraining. She needs discipline. She needs reminders, metrics, calibration. Whereas I really need to trust, to take it easy, to remember all this could happen to me.

For my mind and my acuity are all I have left. My body is a neurological hulk, its motor and sensory treasures sacked. What if I couldn't speak or write or think quickly? What if my thoughts began to slip a cog or two? What would I be? What if I was all chemo cortex? I'd be swimming in loss, gulping in mouthfuls of failure, going under. Or maybe I'd just be taking things day by day, discovering, like Marlou, that we are more than our minds. For life does this to us, strips things away, detaches us from the characteristics we most cherish, the things that define us. Or appear to. That's the lesson in loss -- we find out what's beyond. What we are without the thing that's gone, especially the essential thing. Essential...as in essence. And in essence we are finding who we really are...the holy Grail of existence, supposedly. The postgraduate course in human identity. Which I would never enroll in...but do not want to flunk.

The thing about the commuter train to San Francisco is that it involves an ascent. Not only is one going up the map, as well as up the food chain in terms of urban life, but there is literally a step up, in fact 10 or so, from platform to seating level. For wheelchairs, this is accomplished via mechanical lift. And it's that overall sense of up and at 'em, up and away, that gives these trips to the provincial capital an added boost. Of course, when the conductor announces that there is already another wheelchair on board, the experience becomes a bit less exclusive. Two of us will have special needs, be special people, take the special trip. We will have to share. No matter. One soon adjusts. Though, when the conductor adds that the other wheelchair passenger is going all the way up the Peninsula, passing stop after stop, to hit the big time, the City, I have to admit that's another matter. It's nice having the wheelchair space all to oneself. One never knows about disabled people.

Although I instantly know all I want to about this one. That she is toothless, more exactly dentureless, makes her look old. Though later, when I get a closer look, I know she is only in her late 30s, early 40s. The mechanical wheelchair lift scoops me up like a shovel, swoops me into the car. I and my lead batteries blast through the open vestibule doors into the car. Hello, she says, that's a nice wheelchair. This is the moment when I take in the toothlessness, the excessive willingness to talk, the banal, and inaccurate, reference to my wheelchair. Mine, it turns out, is both smaller and older than hers. In fact, her wheelchair is new, still shiny with metallic paint, and of different design, with a broad sculpted front and a wide chassis. You going to San Francisco, she asks?

I say nothing about the wheelchair and mutter yes, San Francisco. I am suspicious of this woman, already convinced that she is a talker. Whereas, this morning, I am a reader. The San Francisco Chronicle, a folded version, sits and awaits my attention. Eric Newby's account of the Hindu Kush, with a hundred or so pages to go, also sits on my lap. This woman's account of anything can hardly compete.

Can I do anything? She directs this at me as the train picks up speed and I pick up my leg, the paralyzed one with the plastic brace, holding it by my cuff. No, I tell her. I don't need help, I don't want to interact with her, I want my foot in place and my morning unfolding as it should. That's a nice wheelchair, she says over the rail noise. She is forced to speak these words at my back, for both of us are facing forward, me in front. From my position, I can wedge my paralyzed leg against a carpeted bulkhead, keeping the foot aloft and, with it, my spirits. For once the foot has been perched, it does not need to be tended. No worries about blood clots forming, tissues swelling. The foot takes care of itself, the train takes care of itself, the trip takes care of itself. And before you know it, journalists' impressions absorbed and behind me, the Peninsula behind me, we are in San Francisco. While this woman wonders aloud if she can do anything...to help.

Being able to do anything... that's what disability is all about. And that's why I'm painfully aware of giving this woman the cold shoulder. It can't hurt to engage her in a bit of chit chat. Just enough of an exchange to let her know, and me know, that we are not alone. Both of us require wheelchairs, wheelchair lifts to get aboard trains. And both of us take up space. We are a losing proposition for this and any other train. Our two wheelchairs occupy a disabled space that could easily hold eight chairs. That's eight full-revenue passengers, instead of two passengers traveling at a 50% disabled discount. We represent, both of us, an 87.5% loss, if my math is right. Which it may not be, for I am both crippled and aging. I probably have 20 years on this woman. Who, incredibly, is now offering to help me pick up the Chronicle business section, which has slipped from my one-handed reading, to the floor. No thanks, I tell her. Not that the help wouldn't be welcome, for leaning hard to the left to retrieve things is one of my more frequent, and least favorite, pastimes. Anyway,she is in no position to help. Her wide-track wheelchair seems barely maneuverable. And for her to retrieve the paper, I will have to roll out of my position and into the aisle. Which simply isn't worth it. Although I can tell this would be worth it to her. She craves attention, acknowledgment. And why is her offer of help annoying? Because with Marlou ill, I need more help than ever. And pallid offers of assistance feel like a mockery. No, thank you, I tell her.

It's quite remarkable how Newby and his austere foreign-service travel companion get by on foot in 1950s northeastern Afghanistan. With each page, their achievement seems more remarkable. They are traveling up gorges that have never seen a white man, ever. Fat-tailed Himalayan sheep nearly knock them off the foot-wide paths into turning, glacier-fed rivers. While all I have to do is sit here, foot in the air, while Caltrain slows for Millbrae. Excuse me. I ignore her first sally. Excuse me. I turn my head sideways. Yes? You're going to have to move your wheelchair to one side so I can get out, she says. I nod. Excuse me...you're going to have to move your wheelchair....

We are 20 minutes away from San Francisco, I say over my shoulder. You don't have to yell, she says. This sobers me. Was I yelling? I was certainly annoyed. And the yelling half shames me and half intrigues me. For these days, with no things trivial and everything laden with mortality, stuff is coming out. Stuff like my annoyance.

San Francisco is 20 minutes away, and moving my wheelchair to one side can be effected with the flick of a joystick. Surely she knows this, or should. No matter, for she wants to discuss it. And I want to discuss nothing with her. Now I can hear her on a cell phone. It's Mama, she tells someone. I need my medicine, she says. I need it when I see the doctor. OK, she's heading to San Francisco to see about her health. And poor health leads to poor teeth, then no teeth, and being poor leads to all of these. And what's wrong with being poor? Nothing, except that it's scary. Almost as scary as being powerless, and disabled people are often both. Like this woman, stuck in a wheelchair, stuck with her children and her no teeth and people who won't talk to her. Uncharitable people like me.

At the San Francisco station, the conductor announces that he's going to get the two wheelchairs off the train first. Can you get by, I ask, as the woman kicks her chair into action? I'm not used to driving one of these, she says. I understand. She's new to all this. Are you getting on the Muni, she asks, referring to the city buses? I tell her yes, but maybe no. For, I guess, I am frightened to get too close to her poverty. For impoverishment as always seemed as close to me as the pavement under my wheelchair. Disabled life is lived close to the ground. Yes, but maybe no, that's what I tell her, because I want her to be on her way without me. There's something querulous about her. And people who complain about their burden and make it their lives...this possibility seems very tangible to me these days. Which is why these days I ride the Muni alone.

Somehow before 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning Marlou and I are already arguing. Our fight is a subtle one. Most are. On this occasion I am noting, in what seem to me diplomatic terms, Marlou's burst of plans. She has schemes.... For accompanists for the local chorus in which she no longer sings, the chemo experience having done nothing good for her voice. For matchmaking, involving former workmates. And big plans for my birthday, and not just the celebratory angle, but actual work plans. There will, after all, be a large labor crew available when both siblings and all extant nephews and nieces turn up in a couple of weeks for my 60th. Which, fortunately, is another story.

This story, the one transpiring in our morning bed, has to do with the gap between sunny plans and dark forebodings. I tell Marlou that I sense something speedy, even desperate, behind her planning and planning. I say out loud that she has not been sleeping well, and I am concerned. She doesn't mull over my exposition very long. Yes, she says, she is speedy, but then one needs a bit of speed to outrace death.

Which is not quite a conversation stopper, but does crank up the psychological stakes. This sort of discussion is frequent these days, even characteristic. It's well covered territory. I emerged from the womb of a woman who displayed a considerable gap between persona and performance. She did her best to project merriment, but the effect was often hard-edged and sad. So Marlou's outer cheer and inner disturbance push buttons, as we say.

We often say too much. At least, that's what I'm thinking now, lying in bed, knowing that Marlou is fighting, and she knows she is fighting, which gives us little reason to be fighting ourselves. So, what can I say, except the truth -- I doubt that I could put up a better fight. And I have had a few fights of my own. Which stands us in good stead, right now, Marlou says as the 7 a.m. central heating clicks on. My writing about her life is helping her live it, she tells me. Little pieces like this one shed some light on her experience. And what, she adds, is more valuable than that? Which, if I needed any confirmation, proves that I am a completely self-involved fool, blind to the essential fact that my mate is a writer's mate...leading a truly examined life.

So I nix it with the let's-expose-your-shadow campaign. There is a lot to do these days, such as holding my wife, warming even faster than the forced air from the heater. Making tea. On to the bathroom. Blue jeans. Bike shoes. What does a quadriplegic do with bicycle shoes? He has his neighbor clamp them on to the adapted pedals of his exercycle. It's a brilliant solution for someone who cannot hold one of his feet on the rubber pad. It's also too early for aerobic exercise when the neighbor phones at 8 a.m. But these days I take help where I can get it. Like now. The neighbor snaps my bike shoe in place, and I'm off on the morning mechanical journey to nowhere. The exercycle tells me that I have gone half a mile, 1 mile, 1.5 miles. It shows me how many calories I have burned. Not enough. I'm trying to lay a sort of calorie-burning metabolic foundation for what's ahead, brunch before the San Francisco Opera.

I can't quite trust Marlou's cheeriness, especially when she is dressing, donning the headscarf, asking me to help choose the earrings. She puts on the plain black ones first, and I heartily concur. But, no, there are several pearl options. And being ever critical and ultra-discerning, I have to state an opinion. Pearl choice #2. And there is more...shall she wear her green pants outfit or an actual skirt and top? It is my oft-stated position that we are too concerned about appearances, overly worried about suitable attire. And I maintain this position the way the Botswana ambassador maintains his position on drought. But I am shifting my position, and the reasons are unclear even as the shift occurs. The skirt and top, I say.

Soon we are on Hayes Street, on foot and on time for brunch with our friends. We have parked, due to divine intervention, adjacent to the Opera House' stage entrance. It's November and it's chilly and raining and delightful. The streets are fairly empty of cars, but the sidewalks still have people like us, shopping and eating and buying. Marlou passes a period apparel shop and spots a beret. She's been talking about berets as another head covering, the traditional option, hair, being temporarily out of the picture. I think her scarves look cute. I think she looks cute in them. But damned if she does look better in this black beret which instantly replaces her scarf and fits as though she's been wearing it for years.

The restaurant waiter takes a picture of Marlou and her new outfit, but once we're home, she doesn't like the photo. She seats herself in my antique Austrian chair, the only such family relic I possess. She hands me the camera. I am reluctant, for one-handed picture taking isn't exactly what quadriplegics are cut out for. There's not much I was cut out for in the manual category, and it seems that I am doomed to failure here and should not even try. But not trying is no longer allowed, not these days, not with Marlou trying to do everything. Including trying to stay open to life's possibilities, such as the appearance of just the right beret. So I snap the photos, one by one. Marlou says she is going to send the best shot to her mother. It's a quick record of a brief moment in a short autumn day. And neither of us know how many are left.

Incredibly, my digital photos turn out all right. I'm not much at camera angles, composition or finesse. But I know what sort of day this has been, what sort of smile Marlou can produce -- and how to help her produce another. Right now, complimenting her on her beauty, reminding her of our day together. And reminding me. She smiles. I shoot.

It's the morning after Thanksgiving, what the retailers call "Black Friday," and my mood is as black as the day. It starts with the trousers. Of course I can barely get them on. Whereas, on the other side of the room, Marlou is dancing in and out of her clothes, chemotherapy having shed quite a few pounds. Though, as she describes it, this technique is no threat to Jenny Craig. Meanwhile, for every calorie Marlou has shunned or vomited, I have ingested two or three. We seem locked in this nutritional race, and while I face pants closure issues this morning, Marlou faces chemotherapy's resumption. Which is the other race, the chemicals versus the cancer. And this morning I'm already tired of it, and it's not even my ordeal but Marlou's, and at this moment the chemo is on hold, so why not enjoy the weekend? Because I have issues, which have to do with waist and waste. Both are on the rise, and both obsess me.

First, the eating thing. There's something frantic, life-grabbing about this compulsion to ingest. My appetite has never been greater. I keep telling myself to get this under control. But nothing seems under control, or even under supervision. All of life appears to be metastasizing, tendrils spreading here, cells wandering there. I am attending someone's birthday reception this afternoon, a cake and champagne affair. I do not need any cake. But cake avoidance will not be a cakewalk. It is barely 9 a.m., and I'm already worrying about this caloric threat, seven hours away. I really have to get this under control.

And the waste? Well, first there is the waste of time. Where does it go? Everything seems to have slowed down in ways that are inexplicable and alarming. I refuse to accept that this is part of aging. This seems to be our new life. Waking up, checking with each other to make sure we have both slept well, oozing out of bed over the space of 30 minutes, then going about the soporific tasks of tea making, shower taking, pants closing and day starting. It's all taking longer than ever, and part of the slow-motion effect has to do with endless distractions, most of them self-induced. Fiddling with the newly forged PC-to-WiFi-to-stereo connection can burn up a good 15 minutes, maybe 20. Worrying about my failures as a writer can easily suck up another 45. And we're not even talking about the heater.

That's the electric one, the fire that now casts an orange glow from Marlou's corner of the room. I began my career writing about energy research, energy conservation, energy efficiency. And now, here I am, living in an apartment that has as much insulation as a 1961 Volkswagen, though considerably older. While our barely postwar furnace sucks up natural gas like a wart hog on steroids. And in addition to the hot forced air spewing from the heating vents, we now have this unnecessary, largely aesthetic, electrical heater draining the other half of our monthly utility bill.

Of course, the heater was my idea. It not only provides glowing, orange heat, but does so at the flick of a remote control. So that Marlou can click her warmth on and off. I thought it would be good. It is. It's not a waste. In fact, the whole definition of wasting and of conserving needs a rethink.

Marlou's doctor was not too keen on sending her aloft in a Boeing bacterial chamber for the 90-minute flight to Thanksgiving in Seattle, so we found ourselves in Los Altos, at our friend Arnie's. It's an extravert's holiday, Thanksgiving, so the evening was work for us, despite the company and the cheer and, of course, the food. Arnie had cooked two turkeys, naturally, one indoors and one outside. And it wasn't the turkey so much as the generosity that emanates from every social gathering at Arnie's house. And that may have been why Marlou decided to take some time, take some attention, and take some credit for what she has been experiencing and learning and articulating.

She called everyone to attention after dinner -- for an introvert, a feat in itself -- then spoke about a visit from her Thai brother's wife. No, he's not a real brother, but a foreign student who became part of her family and, as she explained, remains part of her family. His wife had brought an assortment of Asian pears, persimmons, bamboo, all in a wicker basket. Harvest bounty, discreet, low-key. And then Marlou read her just-written account of making a friend in chemotherapy. She took the time and she took the stage. Was it too much, she asked later?

And I knew what she meant. It would have been hard for me to demand everyone's attention. But Marlou's awareness of her own life and its tenuousness, along with the general expansion of her soul and opening of her heart, made its own demands. And what did the Thanksgiving audience think? It's hard to say, because now I am on Marlou's side of the experience. But I think that her cancer was in the room, already affecting people. And Marlou simply spoke to the thing that was present. Which was not a waste. Being present is never a waste. For which we must give thanks.

Sundays are all about indolence, projects that don't get started, loose schedules and loose ends. There's a pleasant glow about the weekend running out, dinner coalescing out of leftovers, something to read or watch or listen to in the early winter dark. And on this most recent Sunday evening, I was listening to Marlou. I was seated in my armchair, the electric one which tilts me out mechanically, like a slow dump truck. But for the moment I was happily reclining, Marlou perching in my wheelchair. She was talking about scarves, the loss of hair, and how to deal with the bald face of baldness. Which, I have to remind myself, may evoke a general sense of loss and bodily dissolution, but is actually a symptom of a cure. And a temporary one at that, a loss that can be, and will be, undone. Something seasonal, like trees losing leaves. The chemo season.

Marlou has chosen as a sort of scarf-headed ideal, Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring." Her plan is to acquire not only the appropriate earrings, along with a perfect scarf, but...she tells me for the first time...to get a photographic portrait. She wants a nice picture taken. Now. Before the ravages of chemo. And whatever else. She really doesn't have a nice photo of herself, she says. It would be nice to have one.

All this hangs in the air. And since the air is laden with mortality, my thoughts go in one direction. This may be the last chance for the last portrait, for the last remembrance, for the last everything. That Marlou is lightly suggesting something for which there is no time to lose. Just as there is no hair to lose, not anymore. A lot more of life can be lost in the coming months. So why lose anymore time?

It's a mild proposal, the photo, coming just before dinner and television. I tell her it's a fine idea, being unable to say the other things. Now, I can only meet her gaze. Which is enough to make us both cry, although only one of us does. Marlou, at this moment. Me, soon enough. For this discussion is like so much that passes between us these days, sad and sweet and vital and tragic.

For why is there no good photo of Marlou? I have had one on my desk, a photo taken years ago in Sacramento. There are two things wrong with this snapshot. For one, the photo is very distant, with Marlou sitting far from the lens. She is perched across a room, by a window, smiling demurely, hands clasped. And she is wearing an uncharacteristically austere white dress with a high buttoned collar. The overall effect is prim. Is fine, but it's not her.

So, what is her? Well, something substantially more sexy. Which means more revealing, and not in the sense of flesh exposure. More, soul exposure. For it is that combination of warmth, physical presence and a comfortable love of self that we deem sexy. That's the Marlou I know, and really, everyone knows. That's the person that has sparked a regional outpouring of e-mails, coupled with an international stream of well wishers from as far as Paris. And not only across distance, but across time. People who haven't talked to Marlou in years, now are going out of their way to get in touch.

And so am I. For why didn't I have a decent portrait of Marlou? I have good shots of both of us, couple portraits. But the traditional photo of the wife on the desk...no, I really don't have one of those. Yet I've been aware of this gap. And something in me has been too stubborn to give in and tell Marlou that I wanted her photo. Stubborn.... Maybe proud. For some defense of the ego that just can't admit need, that is a little too afraid of adoration. A little too cool. And now a little too late...but maybe not.

It's 8:30 a.m. on a weekday morning, and while the skies are graying, my mood is brightening. For I am meeting a friend for coffee, and I am grateful for both the coffee and the friend. In that order, right now, in the interest of full disclosure. For friendship is splendid, but the un-romanticized, loss-of-innocence truth is that just now caffeine is even better. Or, to strike a note of equality, caffeine is also a friend. The traffic lights change in quick succession, and I am hurtling toward a café latte with David.

There's only so much caffeine a human being can ingest, so I have dispensed with the morning tea, simply getting dressed and heading out the door. It's a caffeine-free morning so far, which makes it a bad morning so far. Bad except for the remarkable exchange I've already had with Marlou while getting dressed, stimulant-free in our morning bedroom. I haven't been sleeping well. I've been angry, wishing this would all end, and our lives, limited already with one of us half-paralyzed, would get back to a version of normal. So I've got my socks on, the plastic leg brace is on, my clothes are on, and I'm almost off. Except that Marlou is on. She is remarkably on, on target and on-the-job, relationshipwise. She acknowledges that she has been grumpy. She says she's sorry. She's been snappy, irritable. And she points out that this long-haul of a cancer experience may bring us together, but it can also drive us apart. And what she is saying is that she wants to know when I'm angry. I don't have to bite my tongue just because hers is swollen with chemotherapy drugs. She doesn't want me to spare her my true feelings. If I'm pissed, I'm pissed. And I am pissed. Our laptop computer is on the blink, and only last night Marlou scolded me for turning it off. I decided this was too silly for words. So we had no words. Instead, we had silence. And that is what Marlou is talking about now.

And on the way to coffee, although caffeine-gratitude may predominate, there is a rival sentiment nipping at my wheelchair's heels. Or its little back wheels. And that's the realization that some of life's oldest wounds are healing. Until very recently, I took the lead in discussions of the relationship. I was the psychologically minded one, the partner who tended to worry if we weren't talking. But now it's Marlou who is doing the heavy emotional lifting, taking the chances, taking the initiative. Which makes me want to cry, right there in the crosswalk. Which, yes, could be a function of the not-yet-caffeinated morning. But, no, it's just the day's first blast of poignancy. There will be others. And I have to admit that I tend to run from this degree of intensity. But now there's no running, except running to keep up with the wrenching and the bittersweet moments.

It must be the tone of these days that sparks low-grade Proustian recollections. My first taste of pickled beets at a five-year-old birthday party. Oil dripping off the flaps of a DC-6. And, today, the wooden escalators of the Bakerloo Line. In the years I lived in London after my injury, the Bakerloo figured prominently. Not that I saw much of it. It in those days, hobbling everywhere with a crutch, the wheelchair not yet in the picture, what was in the picture consisted of floors, footpaths, curbs, crosswalks, stair treads, doorsills, and everything else below. I successfully limped and kept my balance pretty well, getting on and off buses and the London Underground, but all this required lots of looking down. Surfaces were everything. Never mind Marble Arch towering over its traffic circle. Look right for the traffic and down for the street. Cracks, manhole covers, even loose paper on the pavement, anything could send me sprawling. Which was why I always looked down sliding deep into Bakerloo Station. The escalator was wooden. In retrospect, it must not have been entirely made of wood, but the moving stair treads were certainly made of wooden slats. I gripped the moving rubber handrail and watched as the oak steps took me down and down. It seemed odd that the wood didn't wear out under the feet of millions of Londoners. In fact, the wooden escalators seemed to work perfectly. True, they sounded like a castanet factory with an overlay of grinding sand. The escalators seemed unspeakably old, feeble, impoverished. The newer stainless steel ones reassured the user with their gliding solidity and quiet. But the wooden escalators had a clattering, toy feel about them. The slatted steps, if one was looking, shuddered slightly to the sides. For all I knew, the mechanism may have included wooden cogs, handcarved, and greased with suet. London. Where everything seemed old to a young man in his early losses.

Still, I learned a lesson on the Bakerloo. I entered the Baker Street station, rattling down the escalator to the train to Oxford Circus, where I crutched and staggered my way through the white-tile urinal tunnels to the stainless steel escalator leading to the Victoria Line, sleek and new, whose trains took me to Green Park, where grimy stairs led to the rocking, sagging cars of the ancient Circle Line. I rode one stop to St. James station. Near there I had a modest office job. It took me at least a year of commuting to accept the fact that if I simply boarded the Circle Line at Baker Street, it would only take an additional five minutes to bounce around the likes of Queensway and Earls Court to St. James. All I had to do was sit down, jerk, sway and wait. Oh, and trust.

A faintly pulsing anxiety turns 4:30 a.m. into 5 a.m., which kind of drifts into 5:30 a.m., and with 6 a.m. looming, the point at which I decide to cut my nocturnal losses and consider getting up. The major incentive being caffeine, the teakettle poised, electrical coils ready to drive water to the boiling point, before I get to the breaking point. Though I get there every day, several times a day. And what breaks at the breaking point? Self-control, rigidity, the escapist habits designed to keep sadness at bay. The only difference is that, this morning, the things-are-okay delusion has broken down early. I'm not even out of bed, and I'm trying to identify with the wheelchair battery. I plugged the chair into the charger before I went to bed. And I'm pretending my inner batteries are being electrified to the max, surging with power and power surges.

Marlou is up in seconds. She lingers at the bed's edge. This morning she is weak and woozy, she says. Hang on, I tell her, I'll make some tea. I cross the living room carpet in high gear, flipping on the kettle, waiting for the boiling sound. Formative years in Britain have convinced me that tea represents a life path, perhaps a cure. In any case, it is my momentary refuge, the steaming and the bubbling and gurgling over the leaves. Because few things frighten me more than loss of physical power. I've lost enough physical power in my life, and I can't quite accept Marlou's morning weakness. I want to tell her she should get on my rowing machine, but of course, this is absurd. She is losing power because her immune system is losing power. She is losing blood cells at an alarming rate. And I am losing my will, my belief in this process. For it is utterly counterintuitive, the notion that by driving down the body's defenses some sort of cure will result.

I don't really buy it, but I haven't been asked. Nor has anyone asked me what I think of this body-as-console mentality. Getting a little low on blood? Not to worry. We'll give you a shot to goose up your bone marrow. Still low? How about a transfusion? Even lower? Well, there's nothing like a night or two in the hospital to get you back to normal. Not that we want you back to normal. We want to pound down a few cancer cells, which just happen to be attached to the rest of your body, so we will pound the whole lot. Which I don't like a whole lot, but there doesn't seem to be a better alternative. So here we are.

I can barely keep up with Marlou these days. She's tearful with each loss, the hair, the skin, the sensation, the throat, the appetite. But she's over it in a few days, wrapping her hair in a scarf, doing without lipstick, grateful for the salves and palliatives the medical crew provide. People e-mail her, and she e-mails them back. She manages blog-style letters to a wide circle of friends. She manages period. Today, I'm not managing so well. It's not my illness, it's not my life. And that's the problem. This isn't my life, but a new one.

Friends have always joked about my propensity for melancholy. But now, sadness and loss are part of the daily fabric, and dealing with my moods is no joke. I am prone to worry, and now I have every reason. But what's happening to Marlou's body is too wrenching to worry about. It's even too frightening to fear. There's nothing to do but be with her, as it happens, in the moment. And wait for the next moment. And not only wait, but that take advantage of the next moment. Because there will be one. And it may be brighter, and it may not last long. None of them do, it seems.

And since I'm feeling ineffective, like I've got to get back to doing things, real things, with my life, I'm beginning to understand moments. You take them when they come and do with them what you can. There is no regularity to my days, no schedule. Planning seems impossible. The writerly habit of sitting down daily before the keyboard at a set time, well, that is a splendid notion. I applaud it. My life doesn't allow for such predictability. Keeping the spirits up, working at something when time becomes available, not abandoning humor. While facing a panicky sense of emptiness that has haunted me all my life. These are my challenges. A friend just phoned to tell me that in times of crisis we need to breathe, go to a place of hope and appreciate each moment. Which will send me off to the Menlo Park Chorus practice at 7 p.m., where all these things transpire. Batteries charged.

We are running out of day. And I am running out of patience. I have decided that, chemo or not, it's 4 p.m. and time for Marlou and I to go on a walk. Three-hour naps are fine, but so are walks. I have too long a history with physical medicine to shed this belief. People are better off moving, hearts are better off beating, lungs better off lunging. Which is why I enter our bedroom with the show of force intrinsic to wheelchairs. There's no creeping, no cautiously approaching, no silent peeks or probes, not with a wheelchair. Remember, this is a two-hundred-pound variation on a theme by a forklift. When it rolls, floors creak, walls shudder and people know. They know it's you and what you're doing. But, for once, I don't care. I am taking charge of matters, because I've grown lonely and despairing in the waning afternoon light, identifying a little too much with the diminishing day. Fortunately, Marlou is awake and sitting up in bed looking delighted.

It's the fire, she tells me, the electric one with the remote control. Marlou can now sit in her bed and, thanks to my online retail sleuthing, press a small remote control and watch our new radiant heater burst into electric life. A warm glow diffusing throughout the room. This was the intended effect. And in the maddening way of relationships, I am both delighted at her delight and confounded by disbelief. I have acquired the belief, the northern European conviction, that human beings should not feel chilled at 68°F and that, if they do, they are lacking in moral fiber. And fiber is good for you. It's more than bran muffins, its climactic fortitude. It's standing and moving about, bundling up, chestnuts roasting in the adjoining room, not your bedroom. Especially not by remote control. And yet the thing works perfectly, it's instant heat and, moreover, instant warmth.

Marlou prepares for our stroll through the byways of Menlo Park. Naturally, there's a jacket involved. But these days, there's always a surprise. Today, Marlou's hair is falling out like bunches of grass. This pulls out my heart, for every day seems to mark another retreat. Marlou has given up her job, much of her capacity to eat, staying up past 8 p.m., swallowing without pain. It's all gone, and now the hair is going too, the coiffure, the difference between a good hair day and a bad hair day. And it's sudden. Sure, men lose their hair, but not the way a car loses a hubcap. We bald gradually, with plenty of time for denial, plenty of time to consider herbal treatments, transplants or the mad wrestler look. Marlou has no time for anything. One moment skin is flaking off her lips, the next her hair follicles are stinging and giving up their job. Chemo, schmemo. And now her husband is urging her out the door and onto faintly aerobic exercise.

There is even less of a day by the time we are underway, left here, right there, making our way to cappuccino land. At the coffee emporium, I queue for a latte, while Marlou disappears. I find her later, sitting inconspicuously at a table. She doesn't want anything to drink, she doesn't even want to be here. For a moment, just the slightest instant, I wonder if she wants to be with me. This is one of our routines, afternoon weekend coffee, and now even this is gone. But that's how it is, things going, going, gone. Marlou reminds me that three is a crowd, that Peet's has more than three, closer to 30, and that crowds and the cold season, not to mention influenza wafting about, are not exactly what the doctor ordered for chemotherapy patients. I had forgotten this. We are out the door.

Once out the door, there's no talking. There's something about rolling about the familiar streets, swerving my wheelchair to avoid this sidewalk crack and that curb anomaly, that stimulates conversation. I want to tell Marlou about the graffiti patrol, how in our affluent county, a SWAT team descends, possibly airborne. And they have weaponry. Sandblasters, chemicals, solvents. They are all over the offending paint, and then the paint removal is all over. And now I'm thinking that our life together is all over, our normal life, the things we share and do together. And this is only because Marlou isn't speaking, she is walking down the street, heading to our next destination, eyes dead ahead, mouth set. Which I half understand, but mostly can't accept. That Marlou's every chemotherapy moment is now uncomfortable, that the mildest activity requires substantial will, that a walk is something to get through, not necessarily enjoy. And the whole thing makes me want to scream or cry.

Which, fortunately, I do not do, because we are now in a stationary store, and Marlou is having a remarkably good time. She has found a notebook, actually a student's schedule organizer. A chemotherapy nurse has recommended this, so that Marlou can record when negative symptoms arise and when they depart. And it is astonishing to behold how, in sickness and in health, we delight in such things. Organizer notebooks. Electric heaters. But, no, not the pens. I am purchasing a non-ballpoint, advanced ink flow, pen. No, two of them, for they cost $1.98, and I obviously need two. Actually, I need none, but my accountant has just told me that I have plenty of money and should stop worrying. And the last time I looked, and I don't look very often, pens had small ball bearings in their tips that rolled ink across a page. And then I looked again, and it wasn't 1980, but 2006, and dammit if the pen thing hadn't changed. And I take great pride in realizing this. I'm half afraid to ask Marlou why she doesn't want one of these pens, for she may already have a stash. Worse, there may be some better, or more current, handwriting technology device that I don't even know about and she does.

We head out the door of the stationer's and make for home. Marlou walks ahead, tightly focused on the next thing, whatever that is. Not that there's much doubt. The next thing is home. And I have the feeling that we have missed something, perhaps everything. I wanted to get out, and now Marlou always wants to be in. Where the heater is. What the notebooks are. We are on separate wavelengths, separate courses, it seems. Until the daily, sometimes hourly, moment when we look at each other and acknowledge the loss. Which, because we are so close, so frighteningly conjoined, is also tinged with gains. Are we losing ground or gaining ground in the battle with cancer? Neither of us can tell. We are only gaining each other.

It's 7:30 a.m. and after the morning's usual hour-long bout from shower to shoes, my wheelchair is bursting through the dawn. Four-year-old Avery from next door is pounding the wooden wheelchair ramp even before I get there, bending low to see my launch through the door frame. We are going out to breakfast in honor of his birthday. His mother is there too and urging me to bundle up against the cold and wet. The temperature is in the high 60s Fahrenheit and a mist, on the order of a sneeze, is drifting over Menlo Park. Buffie has dressed her son for a morning seal hunt on the ice, and I am wearing a thin cotton golf shirt. I assure her not to worry, that the slight precipitation is nothing. No, I am not shivering. This is a morning with backbone.

Avery wants to peek. He is well schooled in the sequence. We wait at the curb, then step onto the pavement and peek around the parked cars to spot the moving ones. One is moving our way and, truth to tell, doing so at a frightening clip. Silicon Valley. Someone on their way to fortune, or a meeting, or a deadline. We venture across the pavement and discuss our purpose. I lightheartedly suggest that I am there to sort out a problem. That according to Avery, at the local coffee shop he eats oatmeal, eggs, French toast and Mickey Mouse pancakes, and what is unclear is whether he eats them all at the same time. Nope, he says, one at a time. Avery isn't dumb, but adults may be, and he wants to show us how he gets lost in a neighbor's decorative hedge. The privet is arranged in an intricate design, which if you're short enough, functions as a maze. Avery runs through the botanical puzzle, his mother urging him to hurry. But never to stop. Every few yards he embarks on another mission. Showing us how he can run up and down the length of an apartment lawn. Hiding behind the apartment house sign. Disappearing under some steps. Until we enter the suburban center, where banks and shops and restaurants are still closed, but the possibilities are open. Avery does a very effective disappearing act behind the brick entrance to Wells Fargo. Buffie tells me that this goes on every day until 8 p.m. I note that we have only traversed three streets, not even begun breakfast, and an awful lot has happened, much of it fast-paced, hard to observe and, yes, I will have to admit, tinged with danger. Avery crosses streets with the look of a drinker who knows the bar is closing.

He is surprisingly sedate at breakfast ordering. Oatmeal. He's not really that into the food, but the staff are into him. The manager, the waitresses. They have pitched in to buy him a birthday book by Shel Silverstein. Still, oatmeal is a sort of medium, a white substance that can be decoratively sculpted into waves, flattened into plateaus, and hollowed into bowls. Avery has a go at these shapes, sprinkling brown sugar here and there, while his mother and I talk. She wonders how single mothers work. She also wonders how single mothers date, although she is trying to learn. I have the morning's San Francisco Chronicle, and she asks to look at the news section. She says, matter-of-factly, that she hasn't read a newspaper seriously in years. I would have considered such a remark hyperbolic about an hour ago, but now I believe her. She is speaking literally. Because Avery, sated with oatmeal, now wants to wrestle. Not that I haven't provoked this. I have told Avery several times that he is the strongest four-year-old old in Menlo Park, but I am the strongest cripple. I lock my left arm around him, wedging his squirming mass against the armrest of my wheelchair, and pretend that after a few minutes of elbowing and twisting, his strength has overpowered mine. The joke is that this isn't a joke. His strength has overpowered mine. Worse, his endurance has overpowered mine. I cannot play this game for more than 10 times. From Avery's perspective, 10 times is barely a warm up. He is ready for the major event, which for me, has already happened.

Buffie coaxes him back in his chair. She has a way of steering him, of saying no to what he does, not who he is. Avery's fitting into the world, staying within the limits, his spirit intact. I tell Buffie that she is doing a great job. No one has ever told her that, she says. Although this must be something of an exaggeration, I can see that expectations for child rearing have become astronomical in our era of options and prosperity. I doubt that I could do as good a job with children. I might do okay as part-time play director, if my assistant took charge of discipline. True, I might pull in the reins a bit tighter at Café Borrone where, minutes after the oatmeal's completion, Avery is ready for meal two. It's midmorning and the queue of caffeine-deprived Menlo Park residents is snaking out the door. Avery can't decide between the cinnamon swirl or the croissant or the Dutch apple coffeecake, and the adults behind him can't decide if life is worth living, and a tension is building, which Buffie stretches on a bit longer than I would, enumerating all of these pastry options to her son, as though he can decide. Which, of course, he can't, so Buffie does. And now we are on to the library, Avery munching on his baked goods, me aware that the morning is going on and on, and I don't care.

Secretly, I've been waiting for Avery's birthday for weeks. This truth embarrasses me, for it seems such a small thing, but has offered an excuse to celebrate life, hang out with someone bursting with it. And this day couldn't come at a better time. I have purchased a cinnamon swirl for Marlou, who is finally eating, who actually stayed up beyond 6:30 p.m. yesterday and was watching television when I rolled home from chorus practice at 10 p.m. She is wan and drawn, like someone who has been through an ordeal. On Monday's trip to the clinic, a nurse lightly observed that Marlou was looking more like a patient five months into chemotherapy, though it has only been five days. She has endured all this with fortitude. Hers is better than mine. I wonder if she can take it, which really means that I wonder if I can take it. In any case I'm taking her this cinnamon roll, by way of the library. I'm picking up books and Avery is picking up speed, and thank god Menlo Park is small enough to accomplish all this on a human scale. On Avery's scale.

We arrive home, and Avery presents the cinnamon roll to Marlou. Who else to offer the roll, but the person who is on a roll? Though I realize that kids are supposed to be walking petri dishes, perennial sources of infection, and chemotherapy patients are supposed to give them a wide berth. Too late. Marlou already has the pastry. And now Buffie has run upstairs to show us Avery's top hat, made of black construction paper and sporting his name in large cutout letters. He thinks the hat is hysterical and, as he pounds the grass for emphasis, no one is disagreeing. Besides, Avery has moved on to showing us where the raccoons live. Also where they dine, where they sleep, and probably where they study for the Graduate Record Exam. But we are not there yet. Marlou is taking Avery's picture. And I am taking a picture of Marlou taking Avery's picture. I am taking mental pictures and everything these days. Because these days are what we have. Which was always true. And is now simply being recorded.

It's 4 p.m., and I am blasting out the door with Marlou. Note that she is ambulatory. Marlou is making progress. In fact, we are making progress together, out the door, down the wheelchair ramp and along the block for the first time in days. Marlou, it turns out, is headed a different direction. She is going to vote. I note that this involves a turning to the left. I say nothing, ignoring the layers of meaning. Instead, Marlou asks me why I am headed for a cappuccino at this hour. The question seems ridiculous. What hour? The 11th hour, of course. I wish her every luck with voting, delighted, relieved that she is on her feet and making her way. She has even secured the combination to the back gate that separates us from the polling place. It's not much of a commute. Nothing is. That's why we live here.

I am rocketing through the mean streets of Menlo Park, swerving to avoid the known ruts, aware that I am very much in one. I always get coffee. Even though this morning I had a doble latte. It has been a busy day for someone whose occupation has become blurred and mysterious. I am not sure where I'm going. Since Marlou's illness, I have not been sure of anything. Except that I am going. Somewhere. At relatively high quadriplegic speed. Roughly 8 mph, batteries draining fast.

At Peet's Coffee, the barista apologizes for not knowing my name. He also apologizes for the fact that my coffee card is depleted to its last $1.10. Hang on, I say, promising to fork over another $20. That's cool, he says. Everyone seems to be trying to help me, and no one is certain what help constitutes or if I need it. Nor am I certain that I need this caffeine at four in the afternoon, but at times I don't know what else to do. Except the familiar thing, the thing I always do, the rut.

Oddly, I find myself back at Trader Joe's, full of a sense of mission, utterly empty of purpose. I buy another package of frozen chicken noodles. Marlou's parents and I will eat this, while Marlou eats...whatever she is eating. I have lost track. That's why I am in this track, this course that has sent me whizzing from home, to coffee bar, to supermarket. When in doubt, when in doubt of everything, move. Movement being one of the favorite pastimes of those who move with difficulty. Nothing like a little wheelchair bop around downtown when Marlou is one week into a six-month chemotherapy and I am wondering how any human being can stand this. I wonder if she can stand it. The answer, of course, is up to her. It's out of my hands. And that's why I'm slightly out of my mind, trying to remember why I am buying unprecedented quantities of food when one of us is barely eating.

Which may explain why I am eating for two. Maybe I'm pregnant. Pregnant with possibilities. Someone has to have a sense of the possible, and it might as well be me. That's why, hours earlier, I took the unprecedented step of ordering more than the usual white rice with the shrimp-and-asparagus Chinese luncheon special. I ordered fried rice. Just the sort of thing for the nutrition-minded. A buddy and I were sitting in downtown Palo Alto enjoying the global-warmed midday sun and talking about Marlou. And life. A situation that called for, no, screamed for, additional nutrition. Fried rice. Why not?

These days, I'm bursting with questions, running on automatic, finding no answers. And finding that I get places anyway. Like the frozen food aisle at Trader Joe's. I buy three things, their purpose and worth, even their prices, unknown. What I do know is that I am in a hurry. My plan is to blast through the 12-items-or-less queue and return home, laden with food for the freezer. Just ahead of me in line, Danielle turns to say hello. I just saw her at home, moments before, where she had cut my hair. She does her work with sharp scissors and a French accent, in my kitchen. Where the whole thing seemed to be taking too much time for too little hair, most of it gray. Less and less of it available for trimming. And my essential attitude toward haircuts, formed at age 4, has not changed. I still squirm, now mentally, and in a wheelchair. But I want the whole thing over. I've got things to do. Coffee. Shopping. Home.

And now, as the queue advances, I am certain that two of the people ahead of me are violating the 12-item limit, being overly aggressive members of the Me Generation. Plus, as we inch toward getting our items scanned, there is this additional drag on my day. Danielle suggests that we walk home together. To my home. She has stopped at Trader Joe's to buy flowers for Marlou. Walking back together makes utter and complete sense, and is the only gracious thing to do, and is making me scream. I am in a hurry. The caffeine is kicking in. And I am kicking. Screaming and kicking, for this whole trip was unnecessary. And I don't know what I'm doing. I am at loose ends. No split ends, for Danielle has dealt with those. But I can't quite deal with sitting at home, at my desk, and occupying a few minutes of my life without running around, literally in battery-powered circles.

Danielle and I roll and walk along the cracked footpaths, talking about cancer and its oddities. She has had lung cancer. Now, she says, she is fine. And she has time and she has flowers. And I have caffeine and a wheelchair. And somehow, unplanned, we are heading home together. It's all happening, either too quickly or too slowly. And maybe it doesn't matter if I'm staring nervously at my desk and or at the passing pavement. It's all out of my hands.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, buying what amounts to a lifetime supply of canned fruit. Trader Joe's. Purveyor of discount-gourmet items, like this one, imported directly from Spain. Spanish Spain, where they dance the fandango and crush olives between their knuckles and eat tapas. And where they shove a mixture of pears and peaches and apricots and, yes, for the high-end California consumer easily seduced by something vaguely haute, figs. Anyway, there they are, all peeled and swimming in their juices in a jar about the size of a small goldfish bowl, all bacteria and E. coli-free, just the sort of thing for the immune-suppressed person on chemotherapy. Like my wife.

It was the best of ideas, but perhaps not the most practical, in view of the very size of the jar, a.k.a. bowl. That's why when Marlou's mother offered to pick up some canned pears at the local Safeway, I told her no. I had covered that base. Check it out, I said, right next to the toaster oven in the kitchen. The big canned fruit bowl. Which has remained unopened and, as far as I know, is more likely to house goldfish than provide fruit servings for Marlou. She's been throwing up, getting dehydrated, I fear. She doesn't like the smells coming out of the refrigerator, and I don't like the fact that, to me, the refrigerator doesn't smell. So I don't know how to help, except to throw everything in the frig out. Which I happily do one afternoon. Cleaning the slate, cleansing the palate...it just seems like a good idea. And regarding the canned fruit, as of this writing, my wife can countenance a 2 mm cross-section of the southwest corner of one sliver of a canned peach, served over a period of time. With the understanding that one teaspoon of water might be a better alternative. Hold the ice. Marlou has been very nauseated.

Which confuses me. This isn't cancer, after all, but the cure. It is the medicine that is making her ill, not the illness. Which, on a certain level, I know, but only half believe. It's an ordeal, the whole thing, and why should anyone have to go through this? How does anyone go through this alone, Marlou asked the other morning. I told her I didn't know. Marlou is a person who takes pride in self-sufficiency, so her question springs from a new awareness, I believe. The challenge is springing into a new awareness myself.

Take the ice. It's a well proven, hospital-hardened technique, sucking on ice when you can't drink water. At her nauseous worst, Marlou has been vomiting any fluids in almost any quantity. So the ice is a good idea. I immediately think of the solution. Roll down to Safeway, get a bag of shaved ice or chipped ice or smashed ice. Then roll home, all five or 10 or 15 pounds of it, open the thing in the sink, scoop out a couple of tablespoons and roll to Marlou's bedside. Which is madness. Which is another demented manifestation of this American self-sufficiency thing. Marlou's parents are here. Either of them can smash an ice cube or two. I could manage, although quadriplegic ice cube smashing is on the postgraduate level of physical therapy. Still, it's somewhat humiliating and even a little frightening to acknowledge that this is beyond me. It may just be one for the in-laws. I mention it to Joan, Marlou's mother. Her husband, Dick, is on the case in moments.

And soon there's ice, crushed, shaved or otherwise, in a bowl, which Dick has prepared upstairs and now brings downstairs. Which reveals another thing, that we have this upstairs-downstairs arrangement, Marlou and I, renting two separate apartments, one for living, one for guests and studio space. Unconnected by internal stairs, let alone an elevator, a situation which could be remedied by a move and a mortgage. Which I should have addressed years ago and given up on living close to Trader Joe's and Caltrain and the library. Although, maybe not. Maybe this awkward arrangement is the best arrangement for now, better than anything I could have planned. Which is why I need to let go of planning. And also why I need to let go of taking the shaved ice into my wife. Yes, I could manage it, but she needs to see her father, and her father needs to see her. And this is what communities and extended families and opening the mind and opening the heart are all about.

Later in the day, I devise a dinner plan, one that involves no cooking. True, it would be nice if we had a bigger home with doors that could shut and better control over airflow, especially asparagus-scented air flow. I am trying not to make Marlou sick, but so are all of us. I go shopping for the ingredients of shrimp salad, give up and hand over the balance to Joan, my mother-in-law. After all, she has made a salad or two before. Joan inspects the eggs I have been slowly boiling on the stove. They are not done. I thought that very low heat, over time, over shopping time, would equal high heat over short time. An egg is a colloid, I remember that much. I can't remember the introductory physics thing about heat and mass or the biology thing about colloidal structures, because biochemistry flew past me like the wind, and it was hard to stay awake in Physics I. And now it's too late. Marlou's mother has turned up the heat on the eggs, and it's time to let go and have a glass of wine. Our old friend from Sacramento, Laurel, is here having wine with us. The whole thing is bigger than me, even bigger than us, and there are some times when we need to let that thing roll along on its own. We drink wine, we eat shrimp, Marlou rises in the bedroom to throw up. And the day has been like that, with some eating and some trying to eat. And everyone trying to try. And on this day it's enough that everyone, including Marlou, gets to sleep.

It's a circle, an imagery circle, and it does its circular thing every Friday at our big local hospital. We meet after hours in the chemotherapy lounge. What's a chemotherapy lounge? Hard to say, but it's comfy and there's a nice view of the hills beyond Stanford. And we are there, my wife and I, to improve our image. Or our images. Or our imagery. Take your pick, just show up on time and please turn off your cell phone.

Evenings in the treatment rooms of a hospital seem strange, what with the vacuuming in the hallways, the absence of people. And yet the place sails on like the Mary Celeste, machines humming, lights fluorescing. Which makes the gathering of cancer patients in the lounge all the more homey. We are the action, and this is the hearth. Our leader, Teresa, is wearing something like a caftan and jangling with bracelets. She has a cheery calm about her. Marlou and I sit facing her. The others do the same. Actually, we all face each other. We are a circle. That is the point.

The other point has something to do with cancer and healing and imagery. Marlou and I are skeptical, yet game. We are giving this a shot. For me, being at least temporarily not a cancer patient, there is little at stake. It's different for Marlou. So, why not be here? Why not go around the circle introducing ourselves -- Marlou and I trying to set something of an example by being brief...there's no reason why imagery has to take all night. We state our names and reasons for being there, but others burst into medical song. One person has two diseases, not to mention a life history, and we hear a lot of each. Another has broken his ankle. I assume that the broken ankle is a prelude to discussions of bone cancer or something equally dire. But, no, that's it; one orthopedic misadventure and the guy is here doing imagery. It takes a good 10 minutes to get around the circle, and I am ready for imagery. Actually, I'm ready for dinner. Never mind.

Teresa wants us to breathe slowly, drain the tension from our extremities, then go to a beautiful meadow. The latter is the imagery part. Our eyes are all shut, we are breathing slowly and we are headed for this beautiful meadow, the details of which unfold at Teresa's pace. Are there flowers she asks? I have already chosen my meadow from a personal meadow repository, and my answer is emphatically no, hold the flowers. Water? What's on the ground? I have already supplied these details and find the landscaping recommendations superfluous. A well. This is almost annoying. However, Teresa assures us that the meadow has a well and the sun is shining into the well, while not shining. This is good, because at first I was thinking about sunblock, but now it's not necessary. There's just energy, celestial energy, pouring into the well. Pouring out of the well is water, healing water. The healing waters part is open to interpretation, which is good, because the only other kinds of water are holy water and heavy water -- and from my perspective, both have gotten the world in a lot of trouble. Again, never mind.

Thing is, I'm quite happy with all this. When I was nine years old, I went to a week of summer camp in the San Jacinto Mountains which lie behind, but mostly above, Palm Springs. Within a few days of being away from home I was terrified of what might be happening to my parents. If I was gone too long, they might divorce. They camp director casually asked me how it was going one afternoon, and I burst into tears. I told about my parents and their fights. He put his arm around my shoulder. This was all I needed. The next summer, I came back for the full six weeks -- when the camp loaded itself into a truck and drove up the county highway to the next canyon. It was a stage of life when simple things were mystifying but happened anyway. Like getting out of a truck and hoisting an unbelievably heavy pack on my 10-year-old back while watching camp counselors strap goods onto the backs of mules. The latter set off at a remarkable clip, tied together like prisoners. The line of boys followed.

We followed all day. Up and up. Back at our permanent campground, things were dry and dusty. We stretched out sleeping bags on piles of crunchy pine needles. Only a small stream, mostly dry except for one bend where water oozed out of the gravel, saved us from desert conditions. The yellow pine forest ended a mile or so from our camp. From there, the terrain went downhill in every sense of the word, the steep slopes descending into chaparral, oak and grassland. Actually, in terms of ecological zones, it was supposed to be the other way around. Chaparral goes up to a certain elevation, until higher, oaks and grasses predominate, then at the next elevation the pines take over. But in the San Jacinto Mountains, the slopes were so steep that the big ecological planner in the sky had jumbled up everything. On our side of the range, pines gave way to greasewood. Forget the oaks. Actually, hold the oaks -- we'll get to them in a moment.

Up and up. My 10-year-old legs were worn out by lunchtime, but the hiking was far from over. The experience had become grueling by midafternoon, and I doubted I could last. I wasn't sure what to make of the fact that in the late afternoon, our line of backpacking campers overtook the mules. They were still tied together by burlap ropes, and their driver proudly stood one side, smiling and toothless, while we boys passed. The campers paused just up the trail, and some words passed between the counselors and the muleteer. We were stopping more often now. I was increasingly winded. We were somewhere above 8000 feet. The trail was wide and showed signs of being hewn from the granite slopes, large slabs of freshly cracked rock neatly lining the edge. It seemed incredible that anything human could have gotten this high and this far away from houses, roads and electricity, yet had such an effect upon boulders. One counselor said dynamite had been used. Maybe, said another, but trails were also built by pouring water into cracks in boulders just before the winter freeze....so expanding ice could split the granite monsters in two. When I looked downhill, there was less and less around me, as the mountain world rose and narrowed, and the trees grew stalky. They were Lodge Pole Pines, someone said. Skinny and mostly trunk, with scraggly branches and lots of open, cracked granite gravel and rock in between. Dirt was vanishing. So was the earth's covering of pine needles, ferns and lupines. It was all over for the ground, for me, for everything, forever.

We halted at 9,000 feet. The camp director addressed the line of boys. While I panted and wondered where the land had gone, he explained the rules. This amounted to something along the lines of stay off the grass. We continued, and the trail leveled and entered a meadow. Little Round Valley, it was called, though it measured in the hundreds of yards and was actually a wide, watery shelf. The meadow hung off the side of the San Jacinto ridge, a treeless, rubble-strewn cliff that shot up to the summit, 2000 feet above us. The narrow meadow coursed with tiny streams, rivulets of water emerging from the cliff. The green spongy ground seemed made of thick moss, rather than grass. Here and there skunk cabbage waltzed out of the sodden carpet and flaunted lush leaves. The tiny valley made a gurgling sound. At this altitude the sheer mountain had paused in its vertical rush to show us the Alpine Zone. Peering closer at the green, I could see miniature white flowers. Only a few hundred feet up the vertical mountainside, the camp director told us, the Arctic Zone began. Meanwhile, stay off the grass.

This was fine with me, for this was a place for a desert boy to take off his shoes, like in a Japanese house. Exquisite. Inexplicable. I stared at the valley, heard it tinkling like a wind chime. One by one, we boys approached a small round pool, dipped a metal cup in the water, and sipped. And now, decades later, Teresa was giving us instructions about a well.

Oh well. Little Round Valley didn't have a well, didn't need a well, because it was a well. Were its waters healing? Only this much can be said: I have never forgotten them. And since no one knows what is healing, or what is being healed, that will have to do. When you sense the miraculous in a mountain valley and are 10 years old, perhaps you have already been healed. All you need is a reminder. For whatever else has happened since in my life and my body, I was in the valley of the shadow of San Jacinto. For the sun had sunk over the ridge by 6 p.m., and the camp counselors had made a small fire and were having a go at macaroni and cheese. Altitude made water boiling and pasta cooking difficult. After dinner, I followed a few boys away from the watery green and scrambled up a granite boulder, leaning against a pine branch. We sat in uncharacteristic silence. The sunlit desert, all its sand and dry washes and flat towns and thin highways, blazed below is. We watched in shadow, cold and getting colder, all of us wondering where the mountainside had gone. For no one could lean out far enough to see the slopes anymore. It was like gazing down from a skyscraper.

Of course, we could see the lower mountains, like Black Mountain, behind our camp. And just beyond, the next true level area, Poppet Flats, in the Oak and Grassland Zone. In my youth, there was nothing in the Flats but a juvenile detention facility. Twin Pines Ranch is still there, but so are mobile homes and a posh resort. It doesn't seem possible. What does seem possible is that the area just had a bad fire, one that killed five firemen. Fires are oxygen junkies. They love to burn uphill where the winds race downhill. Poppet Flats. But that was below us, and in the future. Just as, walking out of the hospital, Little Round Valley was in the past. A visualization. Healing. Go figure.