Balancing Act

Now that Marlou and I are so richly supplied with what the entertainment industry calls "content," we have voluntarily restricted our entertainment to a metal bowl.  That's where we toss our incoming Netflix DVDs.  This also focuses and confines our Culture Wars to a small pewter arena on our coffee table.  There's the Rose Bowl, the Super Bowl and the Netflix Bowl.  The latter contains not only the four video options currently under consideration but the five remote controls required by two middle-aged people to operate home electronics.  What shall it be tonight?  Much of the answer is already certain.  It will be the big Panasonic control, followed by the smaller Panasonic control, followed by the Marantz control and, for a little variety, the DirecTV control.  Neither out of control nor under control, but more like controlled substances, all these remotes, an ungratifying addiction that gets us through our night.  As for the DVDs, Marlou likes comedies, serious cultural fare and a bit more.  I like these too, plus documentaries on families that adopt disabled kids, exposés of the Bush administration and so on.  The Netflix Bowl, with no cheerleaders but chocolate at half time.

At the end of the game, Marlou hauls me to my feet.  I consider it haulage.  It's what you do with a Peterbilt or a construction crane or a forklift.  It's what you need more and more of as you and your disability age.  And it's not that easy.  Every low seat has its odd requirements.  Our sofa is wide, and Marlou's options for footing are slim.  The coffee table is in the way.  I am in the way, it often seems.  It has been seeming that way for 40 years, and thereby hangs a tale.

How much is a disabled person in the way?  No, really, when you come right down to it.  I mean, shutting down half your spinal cord isn't recommended.  You might as well rent a backhoe, dig up El Camino, our local thoroughfare, and rip out much of the fiber-optic cable underground.  Then, Silicon Valley life as we know it would not exactly cease but get awfully difficult.  Not to mention, more expensive.  Thus, the question of haulage.  Who wants to put up with this?  People normally have haulage built in.  Original equipment.  Factory direct.

Much of my life I've had a painful sense of my burdensomeness.  I'm sure this started before my injury.  My mother could barely handle her own burdens, and an emotionally intense son was probably more of a drain than a blessing.  Then came the shooting and the paralysis and the unfolding of events until this very moment when another woman is hauling me to my feet.  At this point I really don't notice and hardly care.  This bodily haulage used to make me cringe.  There's something primal about the man, protector and provider, being lifted to his feet by the providee.  But I seem to be past all this with Marlou.

There are obvious explanations.  We have bigger medical fish to fry.  More important, we now share the haulage.  What it takes for Marlou to get through a day, to keep her spirits going, to wander from cypress-lined Tuscan lanes into another three months in a naugahyde chemotherapy chair and whatever lies beyond...well, that takes a 12-axle big rig, which I help drive.  And although it's burdensome and the freight costs are high, there's a newfound dignity in helping move the load.  The balance of nature, the balance of payments...but things balanced, and even if it's a balancing act, I'm part of it.