To save a life

I have always had pets. I have had pets when I wasn't supposed to have pets. There was the time I snuck two cats into an apartment, saying I was cat sitting for a friend. I suspect the landlord knew the truth, especially when the cats never left, but he graciously let me slide. There was no way I was going to give up my kitties.

The pets I have had, with the exception of various rodents and fish, have always come from the local animal shelters. I do believe in saving a life. There is no particular breed of dog or cat I simply must have. I like to think that the animal has just as much choice in the matter of choosing me as I have of choosing them. So for these reasons I go to the animal shelter to find my pets.

When I went to our local shelter to find a kitty this past week, it was truly a heart wrenching experience. As soon as the shelter opened to the public, a small line had formed behind the desk. There seemed to be two types of expressions on the faces of the people coming into the shelter. Some faces showed the joyful anticipation of seeking a new furry footed companion to bring home. But the other faces showed the pain and anguish of having to give up a beloved pet.

It is in all the newspapers lately. This economy has driven some people to have to give up their pets because they simply cannot afford to care for them any longer. Let's face it, pets cost money, sometimes lots of money. Between food, and toys, and especially the vet bills, some people just can't do it. Granted, there are many other reasons a pet will be sent to a shelter. Some animals just don't get along with their owners or children. Some become aggressive due to lack of good training. And some animals get left at the shelter for pure human spite.

As we were driving in to the shelter, a very angry woman leapt out of the car next to ours. She held a leash and out jumped a beautiful collie mix. Before we even had time to get out of the car, she had already been inside the shelter and had stormed back to her car and sped off. My internal question of "What in the hell just happened here?" was answered some time after my visiting the shelter.

A man hurried in as I was waiting in a line asking about whether a dog had been brought in. When the dog was described, the shelter employees burst out with, "You mean the dog that was thrown in the door by some woman?" At this the man sheepishly muttered, "Yes that woman is my wife." "So you want to reclaim the dog?" one of the animal attendants asked. "Yeah, if that is what you wanna call it," the man retorted. Soon enough the same dog that had been but a blur to me came out to be reunited with his rightful owner. I couldn't imagine the story behind such cruel action on the part of his wife. I was not even there for twenty minutes and already I was privy to a not so private drama unfolding before my eyes.

There were other stories also in the making while I waited in line. A woman sat on a bench, holding a small brown dog, as her husband or boyfriend was filling out paperwork to release the dog to the shelter. The woman mournfully held onto her dog, her eyes were red from crying. Another woman, who was waiting in line, reached out to touch her shoulder and asked her if she was okay. The woman holding the dog couldn't even get the words out. I looked at the dog and worried for its future. I felt helpless, standing in line, while someone else was having their heart ripped out.

A young woman came through the doors next. She had black short hair, the color of glossy patent leather shoes. Her t-shirt read, "Sex instructor, first lesson free." The frivolity of her attire was in direct opposition to the expression on her face. Like the woman sitting on the bench, she was also bringing in her dog to be taken by the shelter. The two dogs barked and tugged at their leashes. They had no idea of the meaning of being taken to such a place. Soon both dogs would be led away from their owners to live in the confines of a cage. Both women were softly crying and petting their dogs.

By the time I got to the front of the line, I felt like an emotional wreck.

"I would like to see the kitties please. I wish to adopt one today."

I went back to the cat room full of cages. All eyes were upon me as I went from cage to cage. Some cats were full of energy, pacing and hollering, trying desperately to be heard. And some cats were quiet and pensive. I talked to a male cat named Captain Black. He seemed a character. Then there were the kittens. The shelter had the kittens grouped in cages with their siblings. After much looking and talking to cats, I spied one little kitty who was swatting through the bars. I felt it was a sign that she wanted me. There were two cats in the cage and they looked like twins. Both were tuxedo cats, predominantly black but with white underbellies and paws. I read the large tag attached to the cage. Two names were there, Angelina and Gina. How would anyone tell them apart? The information seemed the same for both.

I tried to ask a volunteer for help but she quickly muttered, "I have to get a cat, I will be back later." And then she was gone. Another volunteer came in to tell me that I needed to wear a yellow medical gown and put on some rubber gloves if I wanted to handle any of the cats. As soon as his words were out of his mouth, he also disappeared into an adjoining room. A woman with gloves, a medical gown, and hat came in looking flustered as I tried to eek out, "How can I tell Angelina from Gina...." But she dismissed me with, "I am sorry, I am part of the vet team here, I cannot answer your question." Clearly all the workers there,both paid and unpaid, were working their butts off. Finally the first volunteer came back all smiles and opened the cage so that I could finally get to hold my kitten who I found was named Gina. The volunteer urged me to rename her anything I liked. I immediately thought of "Mew Mew the Kung Foo Kitty" as she kept trying to swat at me like a skilled martial artist.

As I held my little purring bundle of black and white fur and peering little eyes, I don't think I need to tell you that it was love at first sight. I was happy but also sad for all the other animals I could not bring home with me.

Perhaps my kitty would have been adopted by someone if I had not been there. But maybe not. I like to think that I saved a life. Mostly though, I was opening my heart to love again. This is what unites all of us creatures, whether we walk on two legs or four. We all have the capacity to love and be loved. And when my new kitty snuggles up under my chin to fall asleep, I know that this is undoubtedly so.

The Waiting Room

If you live enough life, you undoubtedly will have spent a good portion of your time in waiting rooms. Sometimes you are waiting for the miraculous to occur such as the moment when a baby is ushered into the world. Sometimes it is merely for the purpose of the mundane...a teeth cleaning or to get a prescription renewed. And sometimes you are waiting for the news which could threaten your life as you know it.

I was called back to get further imaging of my breasts based upon the first report. They had seen "something" on the mammogram. They wanted a more magnified view.

This news was totally unexpected. I had endured my first ever mammogram that week and thought that would be the end of it. I had done my duty and was ready to come back in a year, not in a few days.

So there I was in a waiting room filled with other women waiting to go back for their scans. Information about breasts was everywhere. On the bookshelf next to me were brochures with smiling women and instructions. There were instructions of how to do breast exams. There were pamphlets about the stages of breast cancer. There were ads for head scarves. And there were photocopies of information about terms I had never heard before like "microcalcification." I am glad I read the information as this term would prove to be important.

After exhausting all the breast reading material, I sat there and zoned out. I began to think about my friend who had just undergone months of chemo for breast cancer. One of her photos came to mind, the first one after she shaved her head bald. She joked that she was a human cue ball. My thoughts were interrupted by the call of my name. They always ask how you are doing. What if I told the truth? "I am a big baby and I'm scared to death." I opted for polite protocol instead and muttered, "fine."

I was led back to an area with multiple dressing rooms and lockers. This very teeny tiny elderly lady showed me a dressing room and she told me the rehearsed speech. "Everything off from the waist up. Put the gown on with the opening in the front. The lockers are over here." At that she was gone. I quickly put my green hospital robe on and chose a locker...lucky number four. As I put my clothes in the locker I began to pray, "Please God, please god, please god...make everything be okay." Then I looked around to find so many ladies were back there waiting. I felt bad for my selfish prayer and included everyone in that waiting room as well.

I found a chair which was opposite a huge poster of a breast with a band-aid on it. It was an ad for a new type of biopsy where there is little to no scarring. There simply was no room to hide from breasts. They were simply everywhere. I glanced at the other ladies in this waiting area. We were all perched upon our chairs like pigeons roosting, beaks down, staring at the ground. It seemed so surreal like a mammogram assembly line. They would call someone back and you could hear the squeaks and whines of the mammogram machine. I fully understood that some of us today would hear good news and some would hear bad news. At that moment in time, all possibilities existed at once.

Another woman several seats away was approached by a nurse. I overheard the words, "a biopsy will be needed." How many of us in this waiting room would eventually hear the words nobody ever wants to hear, that they have cancer? We were living statistics in a world full of odds. In this small waiting room where women come and go all day, someone would become the next statistic.

My name was finally called. I followed a pert little lady who told me she would be doing my repeat mammogram today. I felt an air of confidence from her and I liked it. She was business like and professional which I appreciate when I am feeling emotionally insecure. While in the testing room, I was given the reason for my having to come back. I had this microcalcification I had just been reading about, in both breasts. It was explained to me that I had tiny flecks, much like grains of salt, in my breasts. Sometimes this means nothing at all bad and sometimes it is the beginning of cancer. It would depend on their shape and size and how they congregated. They would need to take more pictures and possibly even have to do a biopsy to see what was going on.

I braced myself emotionally and physically. The first mammogram had been downright painful. I asked her shyly, "Four seconds a photo right?" This is what the first technician had said to me to calm me. This technician seemed puzzled, "Four seconds? Do they last that long? I don't know." My previous calculations of 24 seconds of pain for six more scans went right out the window. I very hesitantly approached the machine. I lowered the gown off my right shoulder as she manipulated my breast to fit between the glass. It squeezed but not that much. I was delighted that this machine was better and I would not have to endure being flattened to pancakes like the last time.

After doing the right breast, she was ready for the left. The gown, half way off anyway, slid totally off and I whisked it onto a chair. "Okay" she laughed, I guess it just gets in the way anyway. Bare chested I stood there in between scans. She asked if I was cold. I think she was maybe uncomfortable with my upper nakedness but I didn't care. I felt defiant almost. I was going to face this boldly like some wild female warrior. She told me I was doing good and that she was getting some good pictures. When I asked if the scans showed good news or not she told me she wanted to keep her job so she was not allowed to say. Usually I could solicit some information from techs but this one was silent. I tried to read her demeanor but just got her professional vibe.

After the scans were finished I was presented with three possibilities which might happen next. I would wait in the waiting room to hear either that things were fine and that I could go home, or that they needed to do more scans, or that they would need to do a biopsy. I was further told that this information would be given to me within the hour.

More waiting.

There was only one chair left in the area. I sat next to an older woman who was now sitting where I had sat previously, across from the breast with the band-aid. My waiting companion was quick to strike up a conversation. "Are you waiting for results too?" she inquired. "Um...yes...I was told to wait here." I responded cautiously. I really didn't feel like talking but I didn't want to be rude. She asked why I was there and I muttered about the microcalcification and then quickly dismissed it with, "It might be a little something." She was quick to sharply retort, "No...it is either something or nothing. It is never just a little something." At that I turned my head away but she kept talking. "For me, I have already had a lump." I hesitantly asked, "So...you have cancer?" She told me that she had a lumpectomy and some chemo and was waiting to hear if the cancer was gone or not. "I'm an old lady...what can you expect? These things happen." She seemed sad but accepting. At that moment a tech came back to tell me my news.

"The radiologist says everything is fine. Just come back in six months for another scan."

The words seemed to come in slow motion. Everything was fine. I yelped with relief. My smile became stilted when I saw my waiting room friend still...waiting expectantly for her news. I immediately felt guilty for my pleasure and wish to escape. I apologized for my good luck, "I just got diagnosed with MS not even a year ago...I just couldn't deal with something else." She nodded silently. I raced to get dressed and told her I hoped she would hear good news too. I will never know if my hope for her came true.

In my mind she will always be waiting.

It's all about the writing...

or is it?

"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money."
Moliere

I had a friend once, who told me that she was going to write the next great american novel. She fancied herself to be the next Hemingway. She had just pursued a graduate degree at Harvard for a field unrelated to writing. When she discovered that she actually hated her chosen field of study, she decided that she would be a writer instead. Yet the one thing lacking was, she actually didn't love writing either. It ended up being merely an excuse to stall the less than glamorous task of seeking employment. So she took a year off and wrote things she refused to share with the rest of the world. Hemingway remained safe from her threat of competition. She never did write any novel, much less THE great american novel.

Can one just decide to be the next Hemingway?

There are some who believe the answer is yes. All it takes is a good agent or advertising. You too can become famous if you merely market yourself well. Well I don't believe it. There is a huge fundamental difference between being a good writer and being a salesman. Maybe I am naive. Maybe I am clinging onto the romantic notion that a good writer has something of worth to say regardless of how good of a marketing strategy they employ. The writing itself is the essential piece, not the desire for fame or fortune.

I dare say that Hemingway did not set out to be Hemingway. Most writers and artists do not know their future. There are a great number of creators of art or literature who were not popular in their time. They wrote or painted for the passion of it. Van Gogh is a prominent example of this. Considered to be a flop in his time, he had no inkling of the immense popularity of his works after his death. Van Gogh didn't paint for fortune or fame. He painted because he had raw passion and a fierce desire to do so.

Again, I am most likely holding dear to a romantic ideal of writing which is not the norm nowadays and especially with our technological advances which enables all of us to claim to be "writers" and "artists."

I am currently reading a book entitled, "The Cult of the Amateur: How today's internet is killing our future" by Andrew Keen. It is an excellent commentary about how far we are going as a society to demolish any standards of excellence in the arts. Writing is but one example. In today's world, anyone can be an "expert" at virtually anything. Joe Schmo down the street who who holds no degrees, reads no books, and lives in his mother's basement, can suddenly be an expert of anything from raising orchids to writing about global warming. Wikipedia is one site which makes us all experts of anything we choose. Despite the lack of credibility, thousands of people still flock to the site for a daily dose of misinformation.

Take a look at television for yet another example of how the public is constantly bombarded with the facade of the expert. The ads for the cholesterol lowering drug, Lipitor, come immediately to mind with the ad campaign featuring a Dr. Jarvik to promote the product. The truth of the matter finally came out that although he has a medical degree, Dr. Jarvik is not a cardiologist and is not licensed to practice medicine. The ad was subsequently taken off the air when this little fact was discovered.

I fear for the art of writing as well. There are millions of blogs out there and the number is steadily growing. It seems everybody and their grandmother writes a blog. As Andrew Keen points out: "If we keep up this pace, there will be over five hundred million blogs by 2010, collectively corrupting and confusing popular opinion about everything from politics, to commerce, to arts and culture. Blogs have become so dizzyingly infinite that they've undermined our sense of what is true and what is false, what is real and what is imaginary." It seems hypocritical of me to quote this as I am writing this for my blog. Yet you just try to be a writer without a blog nowadays. Blogs have become a permanent part of the writing world for good or for bad. I personally love blogging. It is a way to reach people who you would have never had an opportunity to form a connection with before. Yet as much as I do love this platform for writing, I am all the more keenly aware of the dangers and pitfalls as well.

One only has to peruse the blogosphere for some minutes to find that most of it is dreadful schlock. The term of "writer" has been so blasphemed that it holds no meaning anymore. Andrew Keen foretells of T.H. Huxley's "Infinite Monkey Theorem" to be coming true: "Huxley's theory says that if you provide infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters, some monkey somewhere will eventually create a masterpiece-a play by Shakespeare, a Platonic dialogue, or an economic treatise by Adam Smith." And today's technology has provided the monkey's with web 2.0 capabilities. Imagine the lasting effects of such a universe of low to zero standards for truth or quality. We are already there.

We have become a nation of a People magazine mentality.

Where are the good writers or journalists? How can one even find them amongst all the varied and assorted rubbish which litters the internet? What has happened to passion and a love for the art of writing? Are we to all be drowned out by the biggest mouths, the most successful schmoozers, and successful marketers of carefully crafted narcissism? Does anyone care anymore about any sort of quality control? Do we truly enjoy being herded like cattle to the next blog, the next website, touted as being "popular" by the number of hits or mindless comments to some self serving glutton?

I was reminded of how bad things are becoming when I saw a blogger recently who was actually bribing people for comments with the offer of a prize of a gift card. Is this what "writing" has evolved into? Forget about hard work or passion. It isn't about the writing at all don't you know? It is about all the hundreds of "friends" you can acquire on myspace or the number of times people link to you. Who needs good writing? Talent and hard work is secondary to obtaining a large enough mirror for people to repeat how wonderful you are. It isn't how well you write that matters it is who you know and how well you can play the game.

I am greatly disheartened by this state of affairs. In order to keep doing what I love to do I must put horse blinders on and shut out most of the world. In my quiet place I will write with reverence and a simple heart. Writing has and always will be my first love. No matter if the monkeys soon control the world, I will hold onto my pen and paper for dear life. I will write. It is who I am and what I do regardless and despite the lack of money or fame or anything else.

I am a writer.

And so I write...