Hi Fading Rain, and welcome to the land of the beautiful losers.
You picked some of my favourite lines there. I loved that one when I first read it as a poem way back in nineteen sixty-something-or-other, and I like it even better as a song. I never used to be able to get on with that album, but I have been playing it in the car for the last couple of weeks, and I'm finally getting into it.
I really envy you, you know, with all that glorious music and poetry to discover. If you think it's hard to pick a favourite now, just wait 'till you have heard 'em all
Linda
1972: Leeds, 2008: Manchester, Lyon, London O2, 2009: Wet Weybridge, 2012: Hop Farm/Wembley Arena
Hi lizzytysh ~ thanks for the welcome.Don't worry, the question was only rhetorical (I'll figure this stuff out ) :) eventually. I'm Shocked that a true LC fan would not recognize any line from his masterpiece album "Various Positions"!! The song is "Coming Back to You". That album really stirred up my soul memories, he knows what he's talking about. As Mae West would say, he's "been things and seen places". Now I've gotta master this typesetting deal ... ah nuts! ~ Makera
Welcome to the Forum, Bonnie! I'm glad to see you came here ! Great to see you!!! Your selected choices are wonderful, yet somehow I can't imagine not feeling the same about any others chosen ! It's tough, isn't it ? So many lines, so little time.
you must leave everything that you cannot control- it begins with your family, but soon it comes ´round to your soul... there are plenty of others,of course
And you who had the honor of her evening,
And by the honor had your own restored
This past summer my mother died of breast cancer. I am a physician and she was a nurse. Much of what we knew was happening was left unsaid between us. She knew I knew the meaning of the nodules on her forearm, and I knew she understood that meaning, too. The most difficult was reading the petechiae on her skin, a sign of impending sepsis, and she seeing it in my eyes -- that was within hours of her death.
But we stayed much of her last month together, and we talked politics and laughed, and shared dirty jokes and cheap red wine. She would get drowsy on morphine, and I'd get drunk on Mark Helprin, and over the course of many of these evenings, we restored something that had worn away between us.
LC was my driving music back and forth across the Midwest. There were times when the six hour drive stretched to twelve, as I pulled over every half hour.
Still, the journey was never left unfinished. I had the honor of her evening. This is precious.
You just can't say thanks for something like that, you know? It's even wrenching to write about it, as wrapping it in words seems to diminish it. But Alexandra Leaving, and the wry acknowledgment of her "invincible defeat" as she strove for longevity at any price, and Night Goes On, all of these, were like bread and water on that trip. Sustenance, waybread. Priceless.
CT, you have touched more souls than you'll ever know.
"Bipolar is a roller-coaster ride without a seat belt. One day you're flying with the fireworks; for the next month you're being scraped off the trolley" I said that.
I know because you said it, that putting it into words seems somehow to diminish the time with your mother. I understand what you're saying, and what you mean. Yet, for me to read it, seems to bring her, and your relationship with her, great honour and dignity, with the way you've expressed your bittersweet remembering and accounting of your month-long experience. It's as though a legacy was created between the two of you.
Even though I have always read those lines as being from a man unused to sharing intimacy with this quality of woman [and his internal processing of the meaning of that], your experience with your mother, with reference to those lines, gives it an even far greater depth. You have added so much to these two of Leonard's songs.
Your account is very moving, CT, and these lines "over the course of many of these evenings, we restored something that had worn away between us" speak so eloquently to the effect life can have on our lives, particularly with our own parents.
I was unfamiliar with the two, medical terms you used, petechiae and sepsis, and was glad to find them in my regular dictionary. I've learned just now some medical realities associated with death. Thank you.
For me, it was equally moving that the two of you, both practiced in the medical field, and very used to open, clinical, and objective medical discussions, remained mute, and instead relied on the medical understanding between you. It seems as though there was virtually, almost literally, nothing clinical or objective about this time between you, yet that remained, stark and still, in the peripheral shadows. And the two of you, through some kind of implicit agreement, chose not to speak the painful obvious, and in so doing, protected the intensely-personal nature of your relationship during that time; and through looking back over your lives, as you shared time together and the 'now,' retrieved the past, and reflected it onto all of that, as well. You were no longer practicing physician and retired nurse, but beloved mother and beloved child, reunited in heart and soul, preparing together for her soul's journey. You even honoured and dignified her, by meeting her where she was at, willingly sharing her state of being through alcohol, while she was unavoidably in it through morphine.
As you rested along the roadside, fighting fatigue, I can only imagine how those times must have been for you. Yet, you and she still found joy and beauty together, in what became the most precious times in many years. She sounds like she was a strong and beautiful woman, who spent her life caring for others. You sound very proud of her. What a privilege for you to have this time caring for her, but more importantly, for becoming buddies and true friends, while reviving your relationship. Did she inspire you to become a physician?
Please accept my sympathy and empathy for your loss of your mother. Thank you so much, CT, for sharing the details of this painful and tender, yet joyful time in your life. Time that has now taken on a life of its own.
I originally thought that your moniker was probably simply initials, or perhaps the abbreviation for the state of Connecticut. Central Time and combat team are two other possibilities. Now, I'm wondering if your area of specialization somehow relates to the procedure of CT Scans. Since you've chosen not to fill in anything on your profile, if you're not comfortable with clarifying this, it's fine. Your being a physician just causes me to wonder.
Elizabeth, it is a rarity to be so well understood on such a short meeting. Your first post made me feel welcome, and quite understood, as well. Thank you.
As to CT, it is the abbreviation of the moniker I use at the other forum I visit. Shorthand for Claudia Therese, that name itself has nothing to do with my birthname, other than a certain melodic similarity. The medical connotation was a happy accident, you could say. *smile
She did inspire me to become a physician. Hers was the face turned to by the people in our community when they were sick. I watched her reduce dislocated hips and tend to large and small wounds through my whole childhood. She taught me to lay my hand on the forehead of a patient I was examining, as well as to take their pulse -- both gentle and familiar ways to begin the intimacy of the physical exam.
During her training, she had inserted a feeding tube down her own nose in order to better be able to describe and prepare her patients for the procedure. This is the nurse the was, and she was a very strong role model indeed. However, she told me early on that "nurses have all of the responsibilty and none of the authority, so go to medical school." I took the advice to heart and never regretted it.
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! It's tough, isn't it 
