Journey To The Center  

For several weeks, I’ve been determined to get back to writing on a regular schedule, but it seems that life has a habit of getting in the way. A bit over a week ago, I came down with a pretty nasty cold. Thanks to meddlesome demons, almost simultaneously, Sabrina developed a urinary tract infection. Picture me, lying in bed practically comatose with exhaustion, while every hour on the hour, Sabrina insistently pokes her nose in my face or nudges at my hand, trying to get me up to let her out. Fortunately, a friend and neighbour referred me to a local vet – Dr. Behney at the Cochise Animal Clinic – so the next morning, I took Sabrina there for tests and treatment. She’s been on antibiotics for a week and seems fine now. Of course, when things start to go wrong — well, it’s been my experience that one or two things going wrong soon trigger an avalanche. After arriving home from the vet appointment, Sage was racing around the garden, in a display of health and vigor that was probably meant to make Sabrina feel even sicker than she already was. As she came to a grinning halt before us, I noticed a fine stream of blood spurting from a broken front claw, up onto the white fur of her hind legs. By that point, I was feeling so beaten up from getting Sabrina to and from the vet appointment that I really did not want deal with the situation. However, there was no one else to take charge. So, we sat in the garden while I cleaned and bandaged her foot, while all the while, she yelped in fear, not due to pain, but at the frightening sight of a pair of scissors, bandages and medical tape. Picture me, sicker than a sick dog, single-handedly struggling to restrain and calm a terrified wingnut while trying to bandage its foot.

From there, things continued to go downhill. A couple of nights later, my throat was so sore that I put a big tumbler of water next to the bed. After taking the dogs for their evening walkabout, I saw a nocturnal moth fly in the door as we entered the house. I reached for my camera which was sitting on the shelf by the bed. The camera strap caught the tumbler of water, spilling it onto the keyboard of my MacBook which was turned on at the time. Horrified, I shouted “No!” but the water disobeyed and continued to flow through and between the keys. I recall hearing a small popping sound and seeing a flash of blue light in the area of the fan vent. Immediately, I knocked loose the magnetic electrical cord, flipped the computer upside down over a towel and gave it a shake, and then removed the battery. I guess the only fortunate thing in all of this is that I had recently bought an iMac, so had a back-up computer on which to look up information on what to do when you knock a drink into a Mac. Perhaps not too surprisingly, there are dozens of posts about this very topic on the Mac forums. I spent the next hour or so removing the hard drive and taking the casing of the MacBook apart — not with a tiny Phillips screwdriver, as I didn’t have one — but with the tip of a very pointy little paring knife out of the kitchen drawer. Three days of drying in the desert air, and the Mac is running fine again after assembly. Unfortunately, the battery is kaput, but I had a spare that was bought for the trip, so all is well again. I started feeling somewhat better yesterday. Sabrina seems to be over her infection. Sage’s toe seems none the worse for the wear. I guess things are back under control — at least for awhile. However, I think that’s probably part of the problem with how things are these days. All of the above wouldn’t have bothered me too much back when Don and I were a team, but now that he’s gone, problems seem to pile up faster and higher than before, and I realize that’s what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life, so better make the kind of plans that don’t depend on things going right or smoothly.

But I digress. I meant to write something about Bodie, and so I will – momentarily.

Before writing this post, I went back to last year’s post describing a visit to Bodie, California. The first paragraph is as true today as it was then:

From the outset of this journey, there was never a true “plan” of where it might lead, or when it would end. As I sit here writing this post, I can’t tell you what comes next after I leave southeast Arizona in mid-March. The only certainty is that I have to cross back into Canada by mid-April — that’s the limit for visiting the U.S. without a visa allowing for a longer stay.

Somehow, I thought that, a year later, I would have a better idea of “what comes next” but it seems not. Lately, I’ve been searching for signs that there has been progress of some sort. As is the case with so many things, from the inside, it’s sometimes hard to tell. The only quantitative indicator I have is that last year, around this time, I believe I was going through about two or three boxes of facial tissue a week. This winter, I’m still on the first two boxes since arriving in November. The extreme sadness and distress of last year has gradually morphed into something else. Even the fairly intense anger that I have lived with for months seems to be giving way to some other state of mind. I’ve been trying to figure out how best to describe it. Perhaps puzzlement and a certain degree of indifference? Yes, I find myself puzzled about how I got here, what I’m supposed to do next, where to go, why I continue to exist while Don doesn’t, and a bunch of other conundrums. The indifference part has to do with not really caring about finding those answers. The only thing I can say for sure is that, each morning, I get up and carry on. I’ve read enough other widow and widower’s blogs to know that all of the above feelings are pretty normal and often persist for many years. As most have said, you don’t really ever get over the sadness and loss — you find a way to make a space for these feelings and eventually learn to live with them – sort of like having a flock of ravens perched here and there in your house. You get used to their presence and sometimes begin to forget that they’re there, but then one of them hops onto your shoulder while you’re cooking dinner or brushing your teeth and it all comes back. Anyhow, once again, I’ve digressed. Back to Bodie.

As some of you may recall, last year’s visit was made under less than optimal conditions. The weather was cold and windy, with the odd snowflake swirling past. Sabrina elected not to get out of the van, so I left her snuggled up on her comfy sleeping bag. This year, although there were a few patches of snow in the shade, the air was still, and the skies sunny and blue. Both Sage and Sabrina eagerly waited for me to clip on their leashes so that they could leap out of the van to explore the town. We set out down the path past the big iron boiler and other relics of the town’s mining days. It felt a little like I was passing by old acquaintances.

“Oh, yes, I remember you. I met you last year when I was wandering about feeling shell-shocked. Well, I’m back for another look around.”

I was actually surprised at how much I remembered. The cardboard egg carton sitting on the kitchen table of a derelict house – I knew it would be there even before I walked up to gaze through the rippled glass of the window. A trio of oil can lids nailed to a weathered board. Loops of black wire and white porcelain insulators dangling from the side of a tin-clad shed.

The photos from this visit are different. Perhaps it’s because they were taken with another camera. But, no, it’s something more. To these eyes, the world no longer looks the same.