Frost

When the earth was flat, things may have been conveniently simple, but life's possibilities stretched on and on, the only edge being the one you fell off. When the planet got round, at least it had a shape, something you could throw, for example, as well as catch. Maybe even peel. Which explains why I see the year as a sort of crest and trough. Even if time has no topography, we make our own.

There's a major event that occurs in January, my annual physical. The examination/hurdle that gives me a sort of physiological drivers license for the next 12 months. Which coupled with the dermatologist's check of my skin, offers a sense of clear sailing or ship sinking. Combine the two events and you can get a long day.

For a man of my age, health seems to revolve around the prostate. Remarkable considering that I've never seen the thing, have the sketchiest idea of its function and care little if it is large nor small. But prostate size, like that of its six-inch companion, matters. 'It's pretty big,' said the internist who gave the thing its annual probe. 'But smooth,' he added. I waited for the other shoe, the third shoe, to drop. In the last year of my life enough shoes have dropped to fill a Nordstrom warehouse, so I was pretty wary of what was to come. But that was it. Big prostate. Big deal. See you next year.

But not without showing me what a great computer jockey my M.D. considers himself to be. Others, specialists in various clinic departments, toss around data casually, he said. Pull up my files, the doctor was saying, and you get all this extraneous information. But not with him. He was a cool guy and had sorted out the chaff, like my prescription for athlete's foot, and got right to the wheat, the big stuff, like the fact that I am a quadriplegic. Why he wanted to show me this was not entirely clear. But there's something about me that encourages people to talk. In fact to, as we say in America, share. I tried to shift the subject more in my direction, seeking pointers on weight loss, the effects of a British Jewish Christmas being what they are.

And if I had been alert, my misguided tendency to encourage others to talk would have leapt out at me. For I asked what he recommended for weight loss. And he told me, literally. Heavy cardiovascular exercise, he said, was just the ticket. He had been on some sort of macho exercise marathon and dropped 25 pounds. It also seemed to me he's dropped his wedding ring, but I am not a reliable observer of such matters. There's a story there, but it's his story. And maybe that was the whole point. My story, my health story, is for the time being pleasantly boring.

Speaking of boring, that's what's in store for me 15 minutes later in the dermatology department. Yes, I have a couple of wonky basal cells, and plans call for their removal.  Mohs surgery, so-called. Slicing away, examining what's been sliced to see if that's all, and if not, more slicing, followed by more seeing. And how long does it take, this interweaving of minor surgery, cell analysis, surgery, analysis? How long is a piece of string? Was there really a Frederick Mohs? Or is it an acronym, More Of His Skin? It doesn't matter. I'm there at 9:15 AM and depart at 5 PM, having glimpsed in the mirror offered by the surgeon a large round crater next to my nose. I urge her to sew the thing up. Long Day's Journey into Dermatological Night. Yes, by the time I roll outside, darkness is falling. Odd twilight on the train platform. Why not? It's winter after all. Only a few days ago I was in Britain where 5 PM is pitch black night. For all my resilience, I feel vulnerable when it comes to change. Do I really expect everything to remain as it was in California?

One of Marlou's colleagues from work says hello to me on the platform. We board the same train, and for a few minutes I am back in the deathly, poignant spring. Marlou's heart is still beating, beating in other people, and recognizing this brings a moment of tearful recognition. It's good to have Marlou alive in spirit. Painful, but good.

For the year is turning a corner. Not the calendar year, which is a paper fiction. But the real, seasonal one. It ascends on a prostate, tips over a skin surgeon's knife and lands, where it always does, in my vegetable beds. One cannot say much for the cover crop this year. It sprouted reluctantly, barely took root, but none of this matters, for it's over now. The gardeners came by this morning, blew a few remaining dead leaves around, and were set to hit the silly road before I put them to serious agricultural use. I handed Guillermo a pitchfork, and he set to upending my cover crop in the most methodical fashion. Roots in the air, stems in the ground. He refused payment. I had to press some cash on his boss. There is old life and new life and my life, and the days are lengthening, and I'm determined to grow brussels sprouts even if they don't experience a sweetening frost. I've had my own frost, and that will do.