The Furious Spinner

Mario has suggested that I try to relax, so I thought I'd sit looking out the window and writing to you all for a bit. A flock of geese just flew over. It looks so cold outside. In the photo above those are raccoon prints going across a tiny concrete park between the hardware store and a restaurant in town; a huge old walnut tree overlooks it all. More geese just flew overhead. They are really beautiful; have you ever noticed that? I tend to forget that because they often just seem like living, walking bags of shit. I mean that in the most loving and kind way. But if you live anywhere near geese, you know that they seem to shit their weight every few minutes or so.

I hope you are having a good holiday season. Serena came over Christmas Eve, and that was nice. I started talking about Linda, and I just cried, tears streaming down my face, with Serena and Mario listening. Neither seemed uncomfortable with my grief which hasn't had much expression since Linda died. I talked about how I felt like I failed Linda in the end because I couldn't be with her every minute, how I would take the baby monitor outside with me and sit in her garden with the dogs and the birds and the apple trees, needing a break from her death rattle, how cowardly I felt, how bad I felt when our friend Mary accused me of neglect and maltreatment of Linda because I was carrying out Linda's wishes, because I wouldn't send her to a hospital against her will. I told Serena how afraid I was that Linda would die when I went to Arizona the last two years, but she didn't. I didn't tell her that part of the reason I went to Arizona those two years was because I needed a break from taking care of Linda, from worrying about her every minute of the day.

Serena talked, too. She seems almost peaceful now that she has decided to leave the farm. I wonder if I will ever find a friend like Linda again—although I didn't say that outloud. It took me almost forty years to find her, after all. She was so smart, and we had so many things in common. But we weren't the same. We were very different from one another, just as Mario and I are very different creatures. But we love each other. Linda and I loved each other so much that we could argue with one another. I don't argue with people I don't care about; I don't bother. (So if I disagree with you about something, assume I have great affection for you!

And Dave. His death was so sudden, so unfair. I miss him so much. I wonder if it ever goes away. I wonder if guilt ever goes away. I always feel guilt when my friends die, either because I feel as though I failed them or that I shoulda, woulda, coulda done something different if I'd only known...

Yesterday when I arrived at my naturopath's house, I came upon a car wreck, right out front. A white honda was completely flipped over, next to telephone pole. The occupants were gone, and some of the contents of the car as well as glass and other pieces of the car were strewn all over the road. I couldn't help but think of a car wreck that had happened in front of our house when I was still a teenager. I wrote about it in the essay Catastrophe:

When I was under twenty sitting at the kitchen table talking with my mother one afternoon, we heard the squeal of tires on our country road out front of the house, then that scream metal makes as it collapses and twists, and the crunch of glass shattering. Before my eardrums had stopped vibrating with the sounds of the crash, I was out the door.

Running, racing.

Steam or smoke rose from a crushed brown sedan tipped over on its side in the ditch.

A baby wailed.

I raced. The car wobbled.

I smelled gasoline.

I reached in through the shattered window

—glass and blood everywhere—

and a woman held up a bloody screaming infant toward me, carefully, gently, like Kunta Kinte’s father had held him up to the stars the night he was born, only this woman was sobbing.

“My baby,” she said.

I took the baby, cradled her bloody body against my breasts, and raced back into the house and gave her to my mother. Out again. Screen door slamming. Feet hitting the ground.

Across the road.

I pulled the mother from the wreck.

We waited for the explosion.

Which didn’t come.

The mother wept as we wiped the blood from the baby and found no wounds. It was blood from cuts the mother had sustained.

I look back at the girl who was me that day and smile. No hesitation. I knew what to do and I did it.

Thoughtless.

Beside myself.

Or wholly myself.

Whole, at least.

One day a few years ago after years, months, days of illness, misery, discomfort, I cried out angrily, asking the Universe when would I feel better. I wanted to be well, I said, but if that couldn’t happened, I wanted to accept myself—to come to some peace and understanding about my condition. I picked up a book of Rumi’s poems to fling across the room (it was the thing nearest to me). Instead, I opened the book at random (to Chapter Four: Cauldron of Love) to this poem:

Oh seeker,

These thoughts have such power over you.

From nothing you become sad,

From nothing you become happy.



You are burning in the flames

But I will not let out out

until you are fully baked,

fully wise,

and fully yourself.



It seemed strange to come upon this accident only minutes after it had happened. Had I come a few minutes earlier I may have been involved in the crash. (I had gotten in a bit of a traffic jam after stopping off at Sweetwater Farms, a Portland store with gorgeous pieces created by David Marsh and friends.) The people in the car crawled out and ran away before the police came. My naturopath ran after the woman, who was bleeding from the mouth, and told her she had to see a doctor because she could be bleeding internally. She didn't want to. When the ambulance came by, my naturopath waved it down so they would take care of her.

It was eerie—as though it had some meaning beyond the event. And now today I think of us going on our road trip. I hope we are free of accidents. I hope we are safe. It's made me a bit nervous. But...

I'm tired of being half-baked.

I'm done, baby. I'm all cooked. I'm ready for the world.

Let's go.

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All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2007 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.