Price To Pay
Posted: March 15, 2012 Filed under: Writers Write | Tags: compensation, politics, respect, writing Leave a comment »
I met an old man last week, eating breakfast at Las Palapas. He sat in the booth next to mine, and since we were both single, he faced me like we were at opposite ends of a long table. The diner was empty, save a busboy and our waitress, who refilled our coffee cups before taking her morning break.
“Shame. Shame on this newspaper.” He opened a quarter-folded copy of the local, but corporately-owned rag. “It says here, ‘The problem boils down to money. Uncle Sam gives veterans a government headstone or marker, burial flag, presidential memorial certificate and perpetual care of the gravesite if it is in a VA cemetery.’ But no casket. How can they say that?” His thick lilt was punctuated by a hard tap on the table with his fist. “That the problem boils down to money? I gave twenty-seven years of my life to protect my country.”
The busboy asked a question in Spanish.
My new friend answered, “Sí.”
His coffee was refilled.
“What price to pay? The problem isn’t about money. It’s about respect.”
I agreed, but I couldn’t offer any homily that would help, so I listened and nodded.
*To be fair, the article congratulates a local charity that provides caskets in San Antonio, but not Abilene, where two homeless vets died. Read more here.
Like this:
Sea Legs
Posted: January 18, 2010 Filed under: Writers Write | Tags: balance, compensation, dizzy, perception, Trusting Your Instincts, vertigo Leave a comment »I didn’t eat this morning. Instead, I got up on a ladder and felt the world drop out from under me. My balance is not what it used to be–not even close. Once, I was the girl standing at the top of the ladder, fearlesssly holding on with my calves digging into the risers, a bucket of paint in one hand a brush in the other. Like the speaker in Robert Frost’s “After Apple Picking”
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
No more. I am wobbly. The world spins in a motion I can’t predict or identify. Once I’m steady, it does a change up. Like an NBA guard cutting around his opponent then switching directions. It fakes me out and scores over my head. So, I come down from the ladder and sit.
I like to think I have a sort of inner stability that comes with maturity–an emotional balance–a sense of the digital replacing the analog that once allowed me to stand at the edge of a precipice without diving over. Maybe I had to lose one to gain the other?
Dark Times
Posted: May 28, 2008 Filed under: A Zany Life, Goals | Tags: compensation, dizzy, funny signs, vertigo Leave a comment »I saw a handwritten sign today at the check out counter at Home Depot. It read:
EverReady Floating Lantern, $3.95
Good for
a. boating
b. camping
c. dark times
Whoever wrote it must have been having a bad day. Considering my last few weeks, it made me laugh.
Here’s an update on my dizzy world.
- Every morning I learn to walk all over again. When I wake up, the earth spins in a different orbit for me than for the rest of the population. I stagger, but don’t fall.
- I can’t take the medicine the ENT prescribed. (Unless I want to sleep all day.) I’m not nauseous. Considering how this episode began, that’s a big plus.
- For the last two days, Bacon has taken me to the park to walk my regular mile and a half. Determined to get over this, I’m trying to do the things I normally do. Walking helps.
- Riding in the car does not help. All car trips feel like out-of-control bumper cars, and I’m not referring to Bacon’s driving. The world hurls by with less symmetry than it should. Needless to say, we’re saving on gasoline because I can’t drive or ride comfortably.
- I can read and write, but movies, TV, and florescent lighting make me feel like I’m on the dance floor with a fog machine and strobe lights. I have perceptual issues with all things that move, children and dogs included.
All of the medical websites say the way to get over these balance issues is to train your brain to compensate, so that’s what I’m trying to do. Apologies for not posting as often as I should.
