It’s been a long time since I have posted. Not because life has not been mythic! Far from it. It has been difficult. I wrote a post some time ago (“Thoughts in a Car About Karma”) in which I speculated on the sadness of a woman I call “Kathleen.” About how her sadness might have been less if she had merely held the frame that the difficulties she had living with a beloved but profoundly disabled child were the central, karmic purpose of her life. Of course I was projecting! I knew it at the time. Now perhaps I know why.

My reflections on Kathleen came during a long drive Kenton and I made from Santa Fe to our home on Monterey Bay. It was the last trip we made before Kenton crashed with a chance, completely rogue staph infection in his spine. The path to recovery has been far longer than we had been given to believe by the doctors, at least at first. Perhaps we misinterpreted, but more than one told us to expect Kenton’s complete recovery, and soon. Six months later, we may be looking at a chronic condition, at least from the diagnosticians’ point of view. For them, it’s, sadly, untreatable; meaning, they can’t correct it with surgery, and there is no other allopathic treatment. The condition is “rare”. For Kenton, it’s pain, often severe, that does not ever go completely away. And being labeled “chronic” means, mostly, that we’re on our own.

The latest MRI report says the nerves are clumped inside his lower spine, probably as a result of both the infection and the surgery that excised parts of it. These nerves are clustered in a structure called the arachnoid (hence the diagnosis “suspicion of arachnoiditis”). Interesting, that it’s named after a spider, presumably because healthy, it looks like a web. It’s hidden very deep, within the middle layer of spinal mantle, unreachable.

We’ve gone from rejoicing in his seemingly fast recovery from the infection and the trauma of the surgery to awaiting signs of healing, then to coping with the lengthening recovery time, then to steeling our patience as it seemed to lengthen ever more, showing a barely discernable positive arc. We kept hearing it would all come right, but would take time. No one has said lately that we should expect Kenton to recover at all – and if we look at “arachnoiditis” on the internet, it’s a very negative proposition.

I don’t know how to feel about all this. We keep getting bumped into successive psychological cycles – first the relief and expectation; then the waiting; more recently being confronted with the possibility that this is what life has dealt us, for the rest of this time around. We still don’t believe that, and don’t want to, but maybe that’s what the literature describes as “denial”, the prelude to subsequent emotions like anger, resignation and finally accpetance? This is still all too new.

So, back to Kathleen, dear Kathleen, whom I never knew well, and who became the screen for my projection some months ago, as we drove westward, unwittingly, toward an event waiting to happen. So, what happens when I retract that instrument of projection and simply look at myself? Am I experiencing an invitation to apply the same examination to my own life, namely that what I’m doing now is exactly what I should be doing. Waiting, being present with Kenton, and not expecting more of myself, more of my life right now? Or, at least welcoming the rest as gravy.

Kenton manages his condition very well. He researches, he manages his medications, he pushes himself to move even when he’s aching. He does this at all times except those times when the pain blows through everything. I massage the places where the nerves, trying, we hope, to sort themselves out, cause the muscles to seize and cramp and bunch and ache. It works. This is such a blessing, not only because it helps him by calming the pain. It helps me. I don’t have to sit by passively and watch his suffering without being able to help.

There are other things too. We aren’t bringing in much money. When work doesn’t come in, we don’t work. Of course this is a terrible dilemma, but it also has a silver lining. We are able to stay close to each other. And, it is calling forth new kinds of creativity. We have to live by our wits to survive this catastrophe, we can’t be complacent. What if Kenton can’t travel and know for sure he will be able to stand up in a room when he gets there, for months, years, or ever? We are sure he will eventually get better, but we can’t know when. This is calling for very different thinking. That’s what is mythic about all of this – it’s not letting us be what we were.

So, Kathleen, dear, you’re off the hook. I knew it was funny business, all those months ago when I chose you for my projection screen. Thank you for being there, even if only in my imagination. And you see, I was right all along: you did something wonderful just by being who you were, nothing else. Who knew?