Getting Ready to Go....

I'm getting ready to go fishing in New Mexico. Poles and tackle, waders and vests have been mailed ahead, and await us in a friend's garage in Albuquerque. I've packed my bead box, wee vials of essential beads for a half dozen necklace sets, plus tools and findings. This designing "ahead" of the making is a discipline for me since I prefer to make my jewelry intuitively, choosing from my plethora of mica clay, ancient glass, gemstones and vintage beads at my fingertips. Like any process that feels unfamiliar, it is a worthy practice. So I design and choose and organize, culling it down to the essentials. Getting ready to go.

In the midst of my getting ready, my elder friend June, recovering from heart surgery in January, asked for me help when she found herself with an infection that required some big decisions on her part. For the past two days we have been dancing through her fears of returning to the hospital "prison". We waltzed and jigged and tangoed through two emergency rooms, cat scans and blood work and mighty decisions as she stood on the threshold between this life and the next.

After doctors' consults in office and on the phone, June decided to return to the hospital, but before we did, we played hookie. Yup. I took her to the beach. In our tiny coastal town Oceano, you can park in a sandy lot at the edge of the beach and gaze into forever. We got there at high tide, with the waves coming as close to our car as possible (good timing!) and sat there breathing in the salt sea sounds and aromas. June is Otter Woman, a swimmer in fresh water and salt, who swam a mile a day for decades. We sat there in the car, parked nose into the sand, and talked about what she wanted. Turns out she wanted a few simple pleasures. She hadn't been allowed to take a shower since January. She wanted to take a shower, to swim again, to immerse herself in the waters of life. A shower. Check. She wanted a window that opened to the fresh air in her room so she could feel the breeze, see the sky. Open window, sky, breeze. Check.

On our way up the coast to the hospital, almost there, she spoke longingly of a tasty lunch we had shared last year at a favorite bistro in town. On a whim, I asked her if she was hungry...and to my surprise (she had lost her appetite since her surgery) she answered YES. For what? Golden Curry Noodle Bowl! Big smile on my face, as I turned the car around and backtracked through town, and she laughed out loud "You mean NOW? Before we go to the hospital?" No time like the present, and anyway, it's lunch time. Time for some sacramental food from the Sacred Heart Cafe, which just then, was at June's favorite window booth in a tiny Thai cafe. We shared a golden curry noodle bowl with gusto, her first awakening of hunger for several months. Holy food. We spoke more, between spoonfuls, of what she wanted. Inclusion in every decision, every procedure. Check. The option to say no, if her heart said no. Check. A whole different experience than her last one there. Check. She insisted on picking up the tab. Check! And on we danced to the hospital.

In the ER, the tango began, and June knew every step, because we had practiced them beforehand.
She was met by compassionate nurses and her surgical team and more tests, more options, more decisions. Every single thing she wanted, she asked for, taking all the time she needed. Our last steps twirled her into a quiet private room, with an open window, with sun streaming onto her bed, with a nurse who remembered her and treated her with loving dignity, getting her ready. Ready for a procedure that would require frequent showers, promised by her doctor.

I'm home now, getting ready to go again, to go fishing for heart rocks and brown trout, for time together with my husband of thirty years, for time alone with my journal and bead box, for celebrating my sixtieth birthday at holy mineral springs, sinking into hot healing waters, fishing for a new place that may call us home. Getting ready to go. Check.