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What I Heard

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Ken Burns has done it again–hit another historical piece of film over the wall. I’ve enjoyed Burns work for decades, beginning with “The Civil War,” through “Baseball,” to “Jazz.” He has consistently combined solid historical research with the subtle beauty of an artist. But in his new “Mark Twain” biography I made a discovery I once believed impossible. I watched the film without any historical analysis or comment.

For the first time since publishing “River of January,” I watched simply from a writer’s perspective. In the film, scholars discussed how Clemens didn’t find his unique American voice until well after “The Innocence Abroad,” and “The Prince and the Pauper” were published. Twain’s masterpiece, “Huckleberry Finn,” came after years of hesitation until that singular voice could no longer be kept tethered.  The author reached deeply from his childhood–a bigoted world of ignorance, poor grammar, and slang with a twang. He defaulted to what he knew best, his inner core and colorful life.

That resonated with me in my own struggle for voice. I have come to realize that a personal truth has to come off the page to remain in the manuscript. If the story line, or flow of dialog doesn’t resonate, it has to go. There must be a truth to tell. The obstruction of a badly worded sentence, or contrived  idea hangs uneasily in my psyche. I have to write what I know to be authentic. It’s a weird dynamic too, and takes concentration to pull off. I put myself in the scene–whether it’s a cockpit, or a dressing room. From that bit of time travel I can survey the setting, describing it both physically and emotionally. I understand the importance of familiarity.

In another tidbit from the documentary, Ken Burns examined Clemens daily writing regimen.

At his home in Hartford (I’ve been there, it’s so cool) Twain worked in an upstairs room, away from everyone, committing his tales to paper. Each evening Clemens gathered his family and friends to listen to  his day’s bounty. I found that intriguing–not as a historian, but as a writer. (Twain had many notables among his friends, President Ulysses Grant for one.)

Samuel Clemens made writing his day-job, and used his household as an audience. Something I find I am unable to follow. However, my ears were carefully adhering to that writing schedule revelation, contemplating his patterns.

I too, need quiet and solitude, but don’t produce the same way. My engine needs to rev up before any writing session. I think and think and think (like Winne the Pooh) then inspired fire up the old laptop. The historic record can spark my thought processes, and the Chumbley archives also can prompt a productive writing session. All in all, a “fits and starts” style best describes my method. Both “River of January” and the new one “Figure Eight,” have come to life through my haphazard style.

Mark Twain can stand alone as a historic figure, apart from his brilliance as a man of letters. He belonged to a political group known as the “Anti Imperialist League,” opposing unrestrained immigration, especially from China and the Philippines. He disapproved of  John D. Rockefeller and other greedy Robber Barons, making no friends among the elite. All that I all ready know, and taught for years. The astounding thing is I watched the program hearing only the literary journey of an American lion.

Another View

ImageI’m back.  I’ve spent the last couple of days visiting my folks and checking out some mom and pop bookstores.  It’s my hope to find some speaking opportunities to promote my forthcoming book, River of January, and perhaps sell a few.

Again, I have posted Lincoln’s picture as I did in my last post, because today is our 16th President’s 206th birthday.  I like Lincoln.  A lot.  I am what one would call a “Lincoln-ista.”  As I write, my standup cardboard Lincoln is presiding over the dining room table.  It is after all his birthday!

A life lesson Mr. Lincoln seemed to apply frequently was understanding other points of view.  He and his wife were both born in the border state of Kentucky.  Slavery was legal in Kentucky until the Thirteenth Amendment abolished the practice.  Lincoln understood the mindset of slave owners, he grew up among them.  He knew the agricultural imperative of forced labor and the violent defense by planters who would lose their customary way of life.  However, Lincoln disapproved of slavery.  To him the issue was not only a moral one, but an economic wrong as well.  He believed all men should enjoy the fruits of their own labor.  Still Lincoln didn’t point fingers and shrilly condemn his Southern brethren–that would have been foolish and frankly unLincoln-like.

Lincoln tended to avoid resentments and harsh judgements.  Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rival’s recounts an incident where Lincoln was to represent a railroad company in a Chicago trial.  When he arrived to court, Lincoln found he had been fired and a “real lawyer,” Edwin M. Stanton was arguing for the company.  Stanton made a snide comment about Lincoln’s crude and hayseed appearance within his hearing.  Still, Lincoln remained in court as an observer, believing he could learn something from a Harvard trained attorney.  Later, Lincoln made Stanton his Secretary of War.  No offense taken, so none festered.  As a member of the Cabinet, Stanton became deeply devoted to this uniquely principled president.

Now how does an examination of two qualities in President Lincoln have anything to do with my book?  Well, more than you might think.  Though Chum never had the stomach for unjustifiable character attacks, he didn’t waste his energy holding resentments.  From my time in his company he never, ever gossiped or spoke badly of anyone that I can remember. His only remark close to snide, was the time he said Howard Hughes kept the Kleenex business booming.  (Anyone who’s seen the DiCaprio movie understands).  Helen however, seemed to be able to take criticism well.  It was a must, a part of the business.  She was a performer and required to stay sharp.  From my study of her letters, Helen often attended other productions to see what she was up against as an artist.  If she read poor reviews the girl took it in stride and learned.  She improved her skills.

I, too would love to be free of resentments and to see the other person’s viewpoint without spite.  Society is a collection of individuals with limitless opinions on limitless subjects. Believing that we are all absolutely right, and refuse to hear otherwise, does little in the way of progress.  Chum didn’t let the obstacles of his time and place discourage him.  Instead he was polite, courteous, and left the naysayers behind.  Helen saw opportunity in adversity.  She tenaciously used criticism and competition as guideposts to her success.

Not one among us have the market cornered on truth.  But, as Lincoln knew, self righteous blowhards who refuse to bend, eventually break.

Update

 

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Leaving town and my computer behind.  I’ll get back on this site next week. 

The book is slowly taking shape.  Early reviews surprisingly acceptable.

If you know of times and places I can present the story and book, respond on this site.

Remember Lincoln on the 12th.

Happy February.

The Team

Preparing for my husband’s homecoming took a bit of pre-planning.  We had airlifted out of the woods and all we owned was still up there, in the mountain cabin.  This situation called for my own impossible mission team, and they quickly materialized.  Headed by my son’s boyfriend, my daughter and a group of their kind friends a late summer Saturday turned into moving day. 

We met at a U-Haul center, rented a trailer, breakfasted at the McDonald’s next door, then off to the mountains.  By the time my mother arrived to care for Chad, the bed was neatly placed in the downstairs living room.  He had access to a bathroom two steps away, and enough room to use a walker to retrain his shriveled legs. 

None of those preparations would have been possible without “a little help from my friends.” 

Even at school all of my students, colleagues, parents and administration cut me huge swaths of slack.  I realized in the midst of the whirlwind that somehow I was living in a state of grace.  Chad was alive, my family provided support, and my school community couldn’t help enough. 

A couple of days before the state football championship, our school’s team came to the house to visit the invalid-football fan.  They signed a ball for him and sat a while, taking pictures and bringing youth and joy to his sick room

It still remained that he was quite ill, and pitifully fragile.  It became my custom to stand over his bed each morning, listening for him to breath, verifying Chad had survived the night.  And we still had a number of hospital runs ahead of us.  An obstructed bowel, a collapsed lung, pneumonia, and finally his bowel resection.  Still, despite my fears, despite all the chaos and confusion, I sensed an element of direction and purpose.

All of us, my parents, my children, my friends, students, and neighbors seem to form a team of our own.  It was a team of humanity, of support, of prayer, of goodness, and of determination.  I wouldn’t go back to that difficult time for anything, but I can savor from the distance of time that miracle of common cause. 

Fifteen Minutes

A number of years ago I attended a seminar on President Lincoln.  The title of the course was “Controlled by Events.”  That name puzzled me when I first read the brochure.  Abraham Lincoln, in my mind, was the most dogged, determined figure in American History. Because of his resolve, the Union was saved.  I later learned that the title came from a moment when the President admitted that he couldn’t manage outcomes once the dogs of war were released, just grapple with the aftermath. Now, after our battle with cancer and my husband’s close brush with death, I realize what our 16th president meant.

Through rigorous exertion Chad, my husband, succeeded in sitting up for fifteen minutes-a significant milestone. Soon after, his doctors determined he was ready for transfer to a rehabilitation hospital. This move was designed to teach Chad how to function again.  Seriously, the man could not lift a styrofoam cup, brush his teeth, shave, or comb what was left of his hair.

The nurse notified us by nine in the morning that he was scheduled for transport to the new facility sometime before lunch. Of course that meant the orderlies arrived around two in the afternoon, and Chad was tucked into his new bed in the new hospital by three. Not too bad for hospital time.  But what we heard at the new facility left me despondent, and Chad frightened and frustrated.

One by one, therapists visited us until six that evening. They introduced themselves, and gently informed us that sitting up for fifteen minutes was only the beginning. His relearning would test his endurance, reaching new levels of exertion. Critically frail, Chad grew deeply stressed because what they were asking seemed impossible. I vicariously felt his fears, and could do nothing to allay them.

I couldn’t do anything about anything.

I bumped along the currents of endless medical advice. After all, he couldn’t come home until he reclaimed something of his former body.

There he lay, bag of feces on his belly, an open, seeping surgical cut, from his naval to his groin, and the hospital was forcing him to get up and live again.

The looming deadline ahead for me was school starting again. There was no question that I had to work. We had to have the insurance, and the income if we were to survive this disaster financially. The medical bills were piling up, and I had no choices but to accept my nightmare. Then events, for a change, turned for the better.

One of my students lived behind our home, and I had hired her to tend our dogs while I spent days at the hospital. It turned out her mother was a registered nurse, who, just steps away, could be at our house within minutes. Wow, what a miracle for when he came home. Secondly, my seventy eight-year-old mother informed me she was coming to care for Chad so I could return to work. Honest to God, I didn’t want to bother other people, but had no other options. And both our neighbor and my mother assured me it was no bother, and they were glad to help. Both parties kindly offering the gift of their time and skills.

After two more excruciating weeks in rehab, I got to bring him home.  That night my mother chauffeured by my brother arrived at our door. I was sure my husband looked so much better after four weeks of hospitals and treatment. But when the both of them came in, and their faces betrayed shock by his poor condition.

In the end, unlike Lincoln, my husband survived our intense, little war. Trapped in the maelstrom, careening from one disaster to another we had no future.

Events controlled us.

Gail Chumbley is the author of “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” a two-part memoir. Available at http://www.river-of-january.com and on Kindle.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

Biscayne Bay Syndrome

After eight long days in the ICU, days that included an excruciating extraction of his oxygen tube from his throat, grasping to remember his name, the president’s name and mine, the doctors agreed to transfer him to a regular room.  However, when the medical staff says move, they don’t actually mean it.  “Move” is code for “prepare for an unfulfilled expectation.” 

Teams of orderlies had to be placed on reserve, much like medication, liquid food, or a lab procedure.  As a part of hospital protocol, a regular room also had to be requested on the floor where cancer patients were treated.  So, again, we waited.  Chad, severely weakened, barely with the strength to move his head, drifted into and out of sleep.

To pass my time, and with some effort, I tried to read the new “Time” magazine. It was a special issue commemorating American history, featuring Benjamin Franklin on the cover, (a step in the right direction from the crap I usually consumed).  My comprehension skills limited, I looked at the pictures, and read the captions. 

After an anxious five or six hours, my husband finally moved into his new room.  Promptly a nurse’s aide came in with a bottle of something brown in her gloved hands.  Heavy set, tattooed, and very young, she cheerfully announced Chad’s bath time.  Now I wasn’t sure what I expected, but in one casual, shocking motion she unsnapped his gown and there he lay, naked, emaciated, emasculated and thankfully unaware of his condition.  Jesus taken from the cross.  Horror, shock, embarrassment, pick a word, froze me in place.  Callously robbing him of his modesty felt too much.  My poor Chad was too weakened for the embarrassment I felt for us both.

A regular in the hospital now, my face became familiar to the nurse’s station and cafeteria.  The halls antiseptically bare did feature artwork from former cancer patients.  I noticed underneath the framed pieces were the names of the artists, and their death dates.  I shuttered each time I walked by.  Another source of anguish came from watching other patients creeping along the halls, getting out of their rooms, ambulatory.  Chad’s door had caution signs saying wash your hands, wear gloves and a mask.  Another notice stated “Fall Risk.” 

Daily, the medical staff quizzed him with questions such as, “do you know where you are?”  He often answered, “Miami.”  He warmly told his oncologist that he could come along fishing on Biscayne Bay with him and his son.  Studying the nightmare from my front row seat I repeatedly despaired, “we’re never getting out of here.”  When the room finally emptied, I would try to explain to him that he lay in a hospital bed in Boise, to which he’d yell “knock that off Gail!  My son will be here soon.”

Are You Hungry?

When all of this cancer mess began, my husband weighed in around 180 lbs.  By August, after a summer of radiation and chemo, he pushed the lighter side of 150 lbs.  I blamed myself because I couldn’t seem to squeeze enough nutrition: yogurt, baby food, or canned formula through that little peg tube in his stomach.  On once occasion I pushed so hard on a feeding syringe loaded with strained carrots that it exploded over his torso.  Orange blobs hit the covers, the walls, me, the lamp.  It should have been funny, but instead felt more like a crisis.  In retrospect, I wonder if any food made it through that stiff, plastic obstacle course into his belly.

In the throes of this new catastrophe, I sat beside his stainless steel bed fretting not only for his life, but for his nutrition.  I pleaded with the nurse to find some way to get liquid food that fit his tube.  It had been over twenty-four hours since he had taken in any nutrition, and much of that he had tossed up with the colon perforation.  I realized that I was obsessing, but this issue was the one thing I could help, maybe.

Kindly, the ICU nurse listened to me, the wife, and not just medical notations.  He promised to talk to the doctor about getting some kind of sustenance up to the room as soon as he could.  But despite his intentions, it was easily another six or seven hours with nothing to feed him.  Hospitals make Congress look fast. 

The doctor first had to approve the nutrition, then order the food.  The pharmacy had to fill the order, the bag had to be transported to the floor and the nurse had to find a moment to hook it up.  To make this endless process short, the nutrition finally arrived, and honestly, I was a little chagrined.  The bag was filled with a yellow, clear, liquid, and looked to have no bulk at all.  The liquid was called TPN, and was none too impressive to behold.  But the nurse assured me that it had the substance to keep him going.

Now look, I know that healthy people can go days without food as long as they remain hydrated.  But Chad was so below the norm from the summer, that my fretting turned to anguish.  He hadn’t much to go on when this disaster began. The little bit the hospital provided only slightly took the edge off my dread.

Oh, and the new bed sore.  A spot had appeared at the base of his back and became raw and nasty fast, from lying in a comatose, prone position.  The doctor ordered a new bed, an air bed, with the idea of taking the pressure off his lower back.  Honestly, that order took another seven hours to materialize.  In the end, (no pun intended), his tailbone still bore too much pressure and the sore remained a pestilence until Chad was up and walking weeks later. 

One of nurses happened to remark to me that everyday spent in the ICU costs the patient two weeks of muscle loss.  That meant that for each day Chad lay there, his body deteriorated  fourteen days of lost mass.  Weird, but true.  He remained eight days.  His body grew ravaged and skeletal by the time he was transferred to a regular room.

I showed no physical effects of my own growing depression except I too, couldn’t eat.  After leaving the hospital each afternoon, I floated home in some cloud, fed the dogs, and buried myself in romance novels.  I read the same ones over and over.  Funny, I didn’t feel any hunger pangs either.  Both of us were equally immobilized, equally shut down.  The only difference between the two of us–I could physically leave the hospital.