Villanelles

Villanelles are an odd, tight, technical form that originated during the Renaissance as freeform drinking songs. Somewhere along the line, supposedly in nineteenth century France, villanelles became highly structured and assumed the form they retain today: five tercets (stanzas of three lines) followed by a quatrain (stanza with four lines), with two repeating lines (refrains) and two repeating rhymes (a or b). The repeating lines are the first and third line of the first tercet. The ending quatrain also picks up those repetitious (and rhyming) lines. (Confused yet? So am I. I only write these with a penciled schematic in the margin.)

For someone like me who struggles with rhymed verse, villanelles are hell. Some poets - Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath - handled this form brilliantly. Me? I feel like I am writing script for greeting cards when I work on one.

Below is my first attempt (ever) at a villanelle, written in March of this year.

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End of Day

Daylight fades across the way.
Shadows grow, colors end.
Candles lit at end of day.

Children coming in from play,
Parting from the many friends,
Daylight fades across the way.

Supper: hunger's now at bay.
Mother with the socks to mend,
Candles lit at end of day.

Bath time now, boat display!
Homework done with, time to spend.
Daylight fades across the way.

Day is over, time to pray,
Cares and worries now to tend.
Candles lit at end of day.

Sleeping household, let it stay
Quiet while the nighttime wends.
Daylight fades across the way.
Candles lit at end of day.

Tiptoeing Through the Medical Bills

Today's mail held two medical bills, the continuing fallout from July's horrific oncology visit with Dr. Bully. After a long meditative moment spent pressing my forehead against a handily nearby doorframe, I picked up the phone to talk with two different billing reps and a financial assistance counselor at Ohio Health. In each case, the folks I dealt with today were far better listeners and far more pleasant than Dr. Bully had been back during our disastrous blind date.

For the record, Dr. Bully's arrogance and refusal to listen to the patient, i.e., me, cost me over $1000 after a hefty discount by the hospital. Had he listened, the bill would have been only a little over $400.

Another way of doing that math is had Dr. Bully not been so determined to shatter my self-confidence, I would have had enough presence of mind to cancel the unnecessary tests and my bills would have come out to only a little over $400. My shortcoming was falling apart when he bullied me throughout the entire appointment, thus costing myself over $1000.

I had coffee with a friend yesterday and we talked briefly about my situation - both my cancer and my lack of insurance. She said, both bluntly and warmly, "I can't imagine what you must go through to deal with cancer and the medical bills."

I appreciated her words tremendously, because often I can't imagine what I go through.

Money and medical care have been on my mind a lot lately. I don't like owing bills. I don't make lots of money either, so I have to pay them off in increments. Recently I have read in several different sources that America is the only industrialized nation where citizens routinely go bankrupt from their medical bills or die unnecessarily from not receiving medical treatment because they cannot afford it.

I've already done the former in recent years. I'm not looking forward to the latter. As it is, I have cut my oncology supervision to the bare bones minimum short of suspending it all together. On a day like today, when my mailbox is abloom with medical bills, I nonetheless wonder whether we can shave that supervision down even a little bit more.

I was supposed to see my oncologist in late October. I rescheduled that appointment to next week, but not because of concern over money. No, I am pleased to the point of smugness to report I rescheduled as a one-woman stand against the medical establishment.

The day before my late October appointment, I got a call confirming my appointment with…Dr. Bully. I almost dropped the phone. I thought I had heard wrong and so asked, "who?" "Dr. Bully." My regular oncologist would not be there and Dr. B. was again filling in for him.

Without even missing a beat, I said, "Oh, no, I won't see him. I refuse to see him. I had a terrible appointment with him and he makes me cry."

The poor woman on the other end of the line quietly said "Oh dear, I'm sorry. Would you like to reschedule?"

That was a no-brainer. I figured I could live with temporary uncertainty over my test results better than a bruised psyche.

Until today, I had shared this story with only four people. All four, starting with Warren, were heartily supportive of my decision. Margo emailed me: Good for you! Exactly the right thing, and I'm glad you didn't decide to straighten your shoulders and be a quote cooperative girl unquote. Many times the thing to do is to not be a cooperative girl.

I see my oncologist next Tuesday. I will be a quote cooperative girl unquote (thank you for that great phrase, Margo!) with Tim because I trust him. He knows my bone marrow, my pocketbook, and, most importantly, my character and my attitude. To top it off, he is an excellent listener. We will talk about my numbers, about what if any options we need to examine within my financial constraints, and about how long until I check in again with him. He will do so without threats, or badgering, or humiliation.

Having a thoughtful and compassionate doctor does not pay my medical bills. But it does allow me to come out of my appointment with my mind and my spirit intact, so that I may better spend my energy taking care of myself and my responsibilities.

I don't know where the national debate over health care will come out. I have stopped following it closely because it is too personal and too upsetting. Instead, I continue to do what so many of us out there do: stay as healthy as possible in as many ways as possible. I also regularly admonish my bone marrow to behave, although I have learned it doesn't take orders well.

And I continue to savor and celebrate each day and the myriad of small moments of great reward that fill my lap. As I finish typing these words, I can smell the homemade chili heating up on the stove. Sam is helping Warren move timpani in a little bit and may stay for supper. Afterwards, Warren and I will share our respective days and our thoughts and our love.

My lap is full to overflowing.

With More Love from Ellen

My mother-in-law Ellen died five years ago this coming Saturday. She died in this house with her oldest child, who is now my husband, present. In one of those random moments of achingly beautiful symmetry in the universe, Ellen departed life with her son close by on the same day that fifty years earlier she had brought him into this world.

My husband and I moved into this house last October. His parents had built it in 1964 and lived in it until their deaths five weeks apart. For him, it was a homecoming after a long and rancorous divorce that had driven him away two years earlier. For me, it was the first time I'd been here 1974. The house was in shambles, but everyone who stepped into it in those early, ugly weeks agreed that it had "good bones," and, more important, a "good feel" to it.

I'd like to ascribe the good feel to us and our close relationship. We are, I hope, a huge part of the positive spirit that now permeates the house. I also know, in my heart of hearts, that Ellen has her hand in the whole matter.

Her touch is everywhere. Many of the household goods came from my husband's parents. The upstairs linen closet holds some of her tablecloths, which I now use; the downstairs one a housedress of hers which my husband cannot bring himself to discard. Her letters, her journals, and decades of photos are stacked in boxes. When I bake, I use some of the same mixing bowls she used for over fifty years.

Her cookbooks are still on the shelf with an earnest cook's notes in the margins. Her 1943 edition of The Joy of Cooking is worn; her 1946 edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (Fannie Farmer) is not only worn but marked with the dates she tried different recipes as well as her editorial comments. My favorite is her note about the Lemon Meringue Pie on page 644, which she made on August 1, 1956: "a terrible amount of work--result not too good." For good measure, Ellen added "don't repeat."

Shortly after we moved in, I often had a sense of someone being nearby, even when I was the only one in the house. It was a warm presence, not an ominous one. When I finally mentioned it to my husband, he got a curious look on his face.

"How do you mean?"

"I don't know. Just a feeling of someone standing near me. Why?"

It turned out that he too had sensed someone else's presence, but had not yet said anything aloud.

A few weeks later I noticed that the parfait glasses on the top buffet shelf began to be rearranged. Certain glasses were moved forward, others pushed back. I would rearrange them and the next day they would be in a different pattern again. Vibrations of the house as we walked through? They moved even when we were gone for a few days.

I mentioned this to my husband as well. This time he didn't hesitate to respond.

"Do you think it's Mom?"

If Ellen continues to inhabit this house, and I think she does, she is the gentlest of spirits. As we put the house back to rights, both of us have a sense of her being drawn back to the warmth that now fills the rooms. I would like to think she is pleased with the household atmosphere now: the cooperation, the sharing, the love. It is what she always wanted for her older son and was saddened that he never quite found it in his earlier years.

The room in which Ellen died after spending the last months of her life is now a combined study and reading room. I do all of my writing and much of my work on a table in one corner. It is a peaceful room and one to which we often retire at day's end to share a cup of tea and our respective days and thoughts.

I imagine Ellen smiling as she listens in, with much love.