King's Cross

It's a strange night, my first back in California.  I awaken repeatedly, each time in a state of anxiety, with the vague feeling of being smothered.  And yet I return to sleep.  So this is it, the current state of things in the deathbed.  I have returned, and there is no escaping this, the work of life, and anxiety is what has to be.  And I'm glad I have been away.  It came to me in the cab heading out to Heathrow far too early Saturday morning, how a trip, too short, too fast, too hectic...can still be so life-changing.  And there was Elliot at the airport, helping me deal with Virgin Atlantic and a little apprehensive about the journey to Terminal 4 and all the confusing changes in Detroit, Minneapolis and God knows where else, and yet doing it.  There's a confidence building element in travel.  

And on this occasion, it applied equally.  The trip, for all its rigors, reminded me that life's options are still open.  I need more help, but help is there.  And I can still try things and make my way through the world.  Two weeks away was less of a distraction than an affirmation.  And now I'm back in the bedroom, our bedroom, and going through the panicky and disturbing and necessary work of bringing mine and ours into some different perspective.

Last night, after two weeks of berating myself for the dropping, forgetting and mismanagement of endless travel details, back in my apartment it came to me, a rather pleasant reality.  How, running on little sleep and functioning at 3 AM London time, how much I really had it together.  How at SFO I had stashed away my UK mobile phone, fired up my American one and gotten ahold of Lorna who was waiting for me when the SuperShuttle van pulled into my driveway.  How she got me unpacked and more or less back to normal life in less than an hour.  And after she was gone, I kept getting things in order myself.  

A quart of milk was waiting in the freezer, and I actually remembered to put the thing to thaw overnight for my morning tea.  Moving through the phone messages...a couple of people to see in the first few days back...and, no, the mail could wait.  The fine motor activity of opening envelopes and extracting contents Lorna could do the following day.  With wheelchair tires badly worn down under cobblestone battering, I made a note to phone the repair guy on Monday.  Quadriplegic life demands alertness of a high order, and I was up to it.  More important, quadriplegic life demands compassion.  It's often hard for me to care for and about my wounded self, but not impossible.  And such was the thread running through all the organizing and self management of the weary traveler's affairs, that I'm worth caring for, taking good care of...with or without Marlou.

And what of today?  Well, there's the mail.  Tomatoes and crookneck squash to be picked.  An important management decision regarding the latter, for the usual mildew is blotching up the leaves.  Exercise.  Seeing friends.  Life gets built out of many small things.  It seems to get re-built the same way.  And what are these disturbing moments of panic in the middle of the night when I'm being smothered, alone and helpless?  Wherever they are, last night my dreams kept taking me back to Kings Cross Station.  As though there were something comforting in grimy rail Victoriana.  Which there is.  On the trip, I kept pointing out to Elliot how big a rail system Britain still had, despite the cuts.  Ten vast railway stations in the capital alone.  The last of which marked the end of our Scotland trip, Kings Cross.  Maybe it was because even without a map I guided us out of the station down Gray's Inn Road to the University of London rooms.  The guys pulled the bags, Jake corrected me when I made a wrong turn at Corum's Fields and Elliot advised me not to roll in the path of a hurtling bus.  Teamwork.  Even when I'm in the midst of panicky smothering moments at night...I can get back to sleep, which has to do with a secret residing at Kings Cross, and I am not alone.