St. Vincent

Life takes us from petting zoos, to petting, to heavy petting, to pets and, eventually, to PET scans.  It is taking us there tomorrow, Marlou and me, and precisely what this means is hard to say.  Except that it's different every time.  At least, this is true for me.  Marlou's experience, at the center of the storm, cannot resemble mine.  In fact, it probably cannot be described.  Marlou says she is scared.  This seems like the truest thing anyone could say of such a time.  It says much for her courage, and something for our relationship.  It says it all, at least for the moment. 

Until there is another moment, then another.  And we find ourselves on a Saturday, in the heart of a concrete-Mission-faux-Spanish courtyard, staring at a tinkling fountain, and digesting lunch and Michael Meade.  The latter, author, mythologist and Brooklyn Irish-American, wanders the consciousness/introspection circuit, delivering talks, diving into community crises and generally fighting the good fight for his truth.  Much of his truth jibes with my own, but I wasn't so sure about Marlou, whether Meade's version of things would resonate with her own.  But whatever the disconnects, we both found something of lasting value in the day. 

Meade seems to favor Bay Area Catholic high schools for his workshops and lectures.  This particular one, St. Vincent's, sprawls its courtyards and buildings over prime real estate in Eastern Marin County.  The thing conveys the general sense of an English country estate, only larger, green meadows, fenced and orderly stretching to the west, vague and hazy lowlands to the east, probably dissolving into the tidal, with the outline of a tanker or two barely discernible on the distant Bay. 

At the lunch break, Marlou and I sat outside in the eastern courtyard, my leg in its brace resting on an eroding concrete bench, paint gently flaking from the wooden trim above us, weeds between the bricks, everything spacious and warm and surprising.  Our meeting room, saved from institutional grimness by a profusion of windows, did not lead me to expect much.  The choir risers stacked in front of the men's room, blocking wheelchair access, clinched the deal.  This place was a loser.  But, no, not so fast.  There was lunch and sun and an expansive enclosed courtyard mostly to ourselves, and quite willingly shared with eight-year-old ballerinas from a dance class across the way.  And there was time.

It's the matter of time that plagues us.  That it's only a matter of time.  I've gotten used to living with a certain level of dread.  Actually, this feeling predates Marlou's cancer.  Dread seems to be with me.  As for Marlou, I suspect that anxiety is an almost constant companion.  Which was why what Michael Meade had to say was natural, welcome and simply this: death is a constant companion.  This may sound like the theme of the day, but it wasn't.  We were dealing with matters of where we are in the world, what stage of life endeavor.  What is the charge, which step is next?  But Meade addresses virtually everything through myth and antiquity, which inevitably brings one around to fables and legends, all of which are riddled with life and death, with death a steady fixture, a plot point. 

In the fabular world, the fear of death seems natural and minor, often as a device to illumine the character and choices of the archetypal hero.  The thing that seems so primary in my experience is secondary there.  In any case, death is everywhere in tales and stories.  It's everywhere in Meade, too.  From morning to afternoon, Saturdaylong.  And by the end of the day, a quick dinner and an exhausting quadriplegic drive home, the two of us were ready for sleep.  Which we did, heavily, all night.  A rarity, and I don't know whom to thank but Michael Meade.

Lunch concluded, I vowed to set out in search of a more accessible men's room, and Marlou undertook in the opposite mission, to find some water.  Still, we lingered for a moment in the sun.  Pretty amazing, I said, this large, sheltered courtyard with its sense of faux antiquity, virtually ours for the lunch break.  Marlou cast an appraising eye over the scene.  Nice, she said, but don't be surprised if the Catholics have to sell it off, or part of it, to meet the cost of child molestation legal settlements.  It was hard to argue otherwise.  But even with my slim historical knowhow, I reckon on the Catholics' survival.  They have endured a lot, even a shareholders' revolt with a split directorate, one CEO taking up residence in Avignon.  Their death has been predicted countless times.  A reminder that helped us drive home safer and sleep easier.  Death is certain for all of us.  But the timing rarely is.