On Hating Hospitals

My uncle is in the hospital. Nothing serious, it is to be hoped. But a couple days after having a stent put in his heart, he started to have chest pains again. So they have shipped him to the main cardiac hospital in the region, which happens to be some 50 miles away, there to wait until the doctors get around to him, which, considering that it is a holiday weekend and his doctor is on vacation, may be some time. When my dad mentioned a plan of going down to see him tomorrow, my immediate, unconscious and unspoken, response was, "Ugh! I hope I don't have to go."

I am actually quite fond of my uncle, but, like most of the public, I find hospitals viscerally abhorrent. I don't think it is merely because hospitals are associated with sickness and death and are therefore depressing. Like many writers, I am of a morbid disposition and find depressing things fascinating. (You will notice that I said many writers, not all, so my more cheerful Smudgian comrades need not consider themselves insulted.) Although it may have something to do with the fact that this is the very same hospital where my grandmother patiently waited to die a few years ago. She, who had no particular quarrel with death but hated hospitals passionately, wanted to be allowed to die at home, which she eventually was. The week or so she was in that hospital, after we learned that she was dying, was horrible, but not because she was dying. The hospital itself, the labyrinth of steel and glass and tile, seemed like the enemy, because it was built for the sole purpose of thwarting death, and the inevitability of death was in such a context an obscenity. Only outside of the labyrinth, among untrimmed houseplants and dusty bookshelves, could her death be real, could it be dealt with and grieved over.

None of which answers the original question of this post. But, as I once observed in frustration over a Noe assignment: "I don't have answers; I have questions. That's why I'm a Lit. major!"

On the Practical Aspects of Romance

I was wondering what my readers think about the following questions. Disclaimer: my curiosity is mostly intellectual. I am not expecting anyone to propose to me, or for that matter expecting to propose to anyone, in the near future. But a certain male of my acquaintance was curious what girls thought about this, and I could only give my own opinion; I really have no idea what girls in general think.

1. Should a guy buy the engagement ring before proposing to the girl, and therefore without the girl's input? It's traditional and rather sweet to put the ring on the girl's finger at the time one asks, and one is in a perfect position to do so while one is down on one knee anyway. On the other hand, loving someone and wishing to spend the rest of your life with him does not necessarily imply trusting him to pick out jewelry for you. My personal feeling is, if the guy is not certain about his taste in jewelry (and what male is?), he's much safer asking first and then taking the girl shopping for the ring. But perhaps I am dreadfully practical and unromantic.

2. Should the guy ask the girl's father before or after asking the girl? This probably varies depending on your particular take on courtship. I'd rather have the guy ask me first, because if the courtship has gone that far it should be fairly clear that my father approves, and I'd rather be the first person to know about my engagement. Unless of course the guy is planning a surprise that requires her family to be in on it.

Please comment. :-)

Censors and Nonsense

I ought to post in here more often, I know. I'm afraid my blog, along with the rest of my writing, suffers from my terror of actually putting words down. "What if I write it and it's not good?" protests my personal Censor. "That's too boring; that's too personal; that's too depressing. What will your readers think of you if you write that?" Censors are at times very useful things to have in your head, but mine is out of all control.

Job-hunting is a horrible occupation. I have tried and failed to explain to my father why I hate it so much, so I shall try again here, in hopes of understanding it myself. For I never know what I think about anything until I write it down and then read what I wrote. The entire thing, from the writing of a resume to the way you're supposed to "present" yourself in an interview, strikes me as vaguely insincere and manipulative, though I recognize that there is nothing objectively unethical about it. I think it has to do with the purpose of words. A word is not just a signifier; it is a gift the speaker gives the listener. One should give someone a gift because it is something they want, something that will give them joy, or because it is something they need, even if it will make them sad. A word which is spoken merely to make the listener do something, because that something will be good for the speaker, is a false gift. Gifts must come without strings - not that a gift should demand nothing from us, for the greatest gift is that which demands everything from us, and no true word leaves the listener unchanged. But a true gift demands of us the very thing it gives us. The word must be spoken for the sake of the listener, not for the sake of the speaker.

Of course, I realize that the people to whom I send resumes and applications do in fact want them, because they need to find someone to do a particular job. Yet, is it for their sake that the job-hunting books advise you so carefully on how to avoid betraying anything negative about yourself? What kind of gift is it to festoon one's cover letter and resume with perky adjectives - "great," "excellent," "excited," "strong"? Words are meant for better things than such games. Since people must be hired, however, how is the thing to be done so that the words give rather than take? Or am I just overly squeamish?

Well, this isn't terribly coherent, but I shall post it anyway. Take that, Censor!

Photos of Maine

As promised, the monument to Elenora French. A warning to all future Maying expeditions:

My sister and I climbing a rock on the way up to the cliff:

Picking rocks on the shore and, er, disdaining to be photographed:

My brother's interesting photo of a tidal pool:

Old Age

I remember reading someone (I think it must have been an existentialist) who said, "Death is not the opposite of life; old age is." I think, however, that old age is life, one particular life, squeezed down to its essence, which in some cases is very ugly. Old age is perhaps more frightening than death, because it represents pure, undiluted human weakness. A person is only able to "age gracefully" if he has already come to terms with his own weakness.

Listening to my grandfather talk, I want to cry . . . he will not admit that he has Alzheimer's . . . he blames others for everything and nothing, as if somehow that will make him feel more in control. He has been a hard-working, church-going, Boy Scout volunteering, orderly, moral person, but nothing in his life has prepared him to accept weakness. He has always been certain of how things ought to be, and he has always put them that way. What can I, the young and laughing granddaughter, say to him? How can I tell him that his strength is made perfect in weakness, and that only he who loses his life will save it? He learned all these things in the Lutheran Catechism when he was a boy, and feels no need to be told them. Yet he does need, desperately, to be told.