Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away

I've had a hard week. The time off work hasn't been exactly as planned. It's cold out for Northern California -- cold enough that being outside isn't an option I'm wanting to take. It's mostly too cold for rain, but not cold enough for snow, not that we really get snow anyway. My joints ache from a variety of injuries. On the days I planned to get outside and do an impromptu crossfit it was either raining or just way too cold. When it's cold like this, I'm aware of the motorcycle accident that injured my knee in 1996, and the 20 foot jump into a tennis court running from the cops that broke my foot in 1977. The fractured vertebrae in my back from 1988 are giving me little reminders -- stiffness, mostly. The long-ago broken wrists (both of them, 1979 and 1994) are just hurting. Please, somebody, call the Waaambulance.

All in all, though, I've been feeling emotionally down with classic signs of depression; sleeping until 11 a.m. or noon. Unmotivated to do much of anything. Uninspired to get any projects done. Body aching and stiff. Feeling sorrowful and down.

My mother came over and lured me out of the house for lunch. I ate mashed potatoes and enjoyed them without much guilt. Well I only ate half the order with my dore-style calamari (butter on the side, left uneaten), and though I've gained back a couple pounds in the last week, I wanted the mashed potatoes. They were really good, and I'm glad I allowed some of that sin. They were, in a word I hate to use regarding food, comforting.

Afterward, driving around in the cold, I decided to go to my favorite cemetary in El Cerrito -- the Seaview Cemetary. When I was in the 5th grade, we lived across the street from this cemetary, and the open lots across the street with a broken cyclone fence allowed easy access. Maybe this is wierd, but I used to sneak out in the middle of night and visit the place, reading the gravestones and listening to the quiet only the dead provide. Yes, Dead Quiet. It was an unlikely place for a kid my age to want to be, but I did. Perhaps I was making some kind of commune with my dead dad, who is not buried there, in this place of the dead. Maybe the solitude of a thousand gravestones dating back to the late 19th century gave a sense of being inside history in a way. A plot of stones mark many children who died around 1918 - 1920. Most of the stones are decorated with lambs, the symbol of lost children. I wonder how the great flu epidemic of 1918 effected the Bay Area, and maybe the cemetary reveals some glimmer of that part of history.

In 1965, my dad and his guitar got on a greyhound bus bound for Southern California. My mother and he were going through a divorce. He sat in a window seat, holding his guitar. A pick-up truck veered in front of the bus on Highway 1, and to avoid the truck, the bus driver swerved. Dad flew out of the window and over a cliff, landing far below the highway. The bus followed, landing on top of him. He was in the hospital for many months, and back then, they didn't let little kids visit. He was alive, but not much so. He left the hospital in a wheelchair, unable to feel or move or otherwise control his body from about the belly button down. He was only 26 years old. He didn't hold hatred for the driver of the pick-up truck. The driver was a weary farm worker who had fallen asleep behind the wheel. But my father was never able to walk or run again. He could not play the guitar again, instead worked on finger-picking on a banjo.

In 1972, when I was ten, my dad died in a rather inexplicable way. He went out to the desert by himself and died there within 24 hours of his arrival. His body was found a week later, badly decomposed. His wheelchair sat within easy reach of his body, which was laying on a sleeping bag. The police found a big jug of wine, some tabs of acid (which they did not identify as such), a bunch of beef jerky, some crackers. Many bottles of water, none of it touched. My dad was a paraplegic, and the speculation was that his system was unable to moderate the heat of the desert for neurologic reasons and he simply succumbed to heatstroke. The autopsy description noted the deep, huge scars from surgeries to his spine. His body was broken pretty badly from the accident that disabled him, but he felt and acted like he was invincible, or at least was determined to give the middle finger to fate. Anyway, he never came back home. His ashes were scattered somewhere, I don't know where. No one asked me what I wanted to do with my dad's body. His being was taken from me and destroyed. I had no choice.

Tomorrow I'll go to the gym, and be grateful that my body works, even though it hurts. I don't know how much Dad must have residually suffered from the accident. I remember that I insisted, vehemently, at one point that I wanted to see him walk. With the aid of his best friend and two crutches, he raised himself from his wheelchair and he walked for me. It was heartbreaking, and even though I was very young, I knew how much effort it took for him to do that for me. He would have walked on water for me if could. I take for granted that my body works, and I whine about the pains I feel, and how hard my workouts are.

If only he hadn't taken that fateful trip. Maybe he'd be here to be so proud of me for doing what I've done in my life, for going to the gym and using the functional body I have to use, the body I've neglected and taken for granted for so long. I'd want him to see me use my body the way I am able to now. It's taken so much work, but so much less in comparison to a man who could not walk but actually do so for his little girl.

Today at the cemetary, I remembered something. Today is Dad's birthday. He would have been 69 years old.

Happy Birthday, Daddy. Tomorrow I'll work out for you.