Vicksburg

I needed to get out of the house today.  I had wanted to go to Clarksdale, but it is simply too far away for a pleasant day trip.  I decided to go back to Vicksburg and go to the Military Park.

It has been two or three years since I was last there, and I always forget the size of the place.  Every time I think I am about to turn the last corner, a new segment of the park opens up instead.  It is huge.

It is also the oddest mixture of solemnity and celebration.  From the very first moment one passes through the entrance, memorials to the dead soldiers and leaders of the Union line the sides of the road.  Separate granite monuments honor the contributions of every state; one can find Ohio, Indiana, even tiny Rhode Island.  Blue and Red cast-iron markers show where the troops on both sides dug trenches, positioned cannon, mined to capture the enemy.  Preserved cannon perch on ridge tops.  Huge constructions of bronze and stone tower over the landscape in grandiose mourning and tribute.

At the same time, tourists are snapping selfies on the steps of the Illinois Monument.  Small children slide down the 47-step-a-step-for-every-day-of-the-siege staircase's banister and whistle and sing inside the Pantheon-imitating dome so they can hear the echoes bounce. Brave fit young things scurry down steep hills and fight their way back up again shouting insults and encouragement to one another. A motorcycle club picnics next to the remains of a restored ironclad ship.  A father and daughter look around and think they are unobserved, then suddenly race up the steps of Wisconsin's monument and do the Rocky bounce, arms held high and laughing, when they reach the top.  A little boy runs up to an array of cannon and immediately starts yelling, "Boom!"

I feel like I'm seeing double.  On the one hand, this is a place of sadness and mourning.  So many people died here.  So many lives changed or ended.  A city was brought to collapse and destruction after a blockade and siege of more than a month and a half.  Now, though, this is a tourist destination, a place where grandparents follow faster-moving grandchildren up grassy hills, a place where competition bicyclists push up the steep grades for training,  a place where families bring their dogs for exercise.

Could those serious men locked in battle so long ago have possibly ever dreamed of this place as it is now, green and verdant, spring blooming flowers and wisteria scenting the air?  Could they have imagined the steady stream of vehicles with tags from every state in the nation come to touch history for themselves?  What would they have thought?  Would a glimpse into a place that for them had to be full of grim determination, fear, and death instead 150 years in the future being a place of tranquility, recreation, and communion please them?

I was thinking all these things as I drove slowly through the park.  At the center of the spiral is the National Cemetery, rows and rows of graves for those who laid down their lives on one side or the other, small, tidy stones like grey teeth protruding from the early spring grass.  Families were hiking among them, pausing to look at something that caught their attention, perhaps a name, perhaps an identification of place of origin.  I hope that those people would all find something hopeful in what their resting place has become.  Something beautiful grew in that place of great loss and ugliness.

Mammogram

Phoebe: (About waxing) This happens to be a pain no man will ever experience.

Chandler: I don't think you can make that statement until you've been kicked in an area God only meant to be treated nicely.

~ Friends, "The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break"
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I had my very first mammogram today, and I can't stop laughing.

I realize this is quite likely not a normal reaction to this process, so I will try to explain.

When I visited my OB/GYN for my annual checkup in January, he looked at my chart and said, "You're turning 40 this year?  It's time for your first mammogram."

My immediate sarcastic mental reaction was, "Well, yay!  More fun for me! Forty keeps getting better and better. Whoo-hoo!" Outwardly, I just smiled the little Noh smile I use when I'm trying to keep that inner voice from coming out of my mouth and into situations where it isn't appropriate.

Since it was my very first appointment, my doctor's office booked it for me.  As with everything from kindergartens to hair dressers, there is a "right" place or doctor that everyone wants to belong to, and so getting in is tricky.  I was sent a time, I filled out my sub paperwork accordingly, and I showed up this morning.

I was a little nervous as I think most people are when they're having anything new done at a hospital.  I had talked about the experience with my mother, so I had some idea about what was coming.  I couldn't get too stressed out about it, however, because of all the other far more invasive and painful procedures I've endured.  I was pretty sure there would be no needle, speculum, or heavy pain medication involved in what was ahead of me this time.

My radiologist was wonderful.  She explained everything to me in advance and made me feel as comfortable as any person in a paper gown open up the back can feel.

Next, I was bestickered.  To make sure certain reference points were clear for the doctor who would read the results, small adhesive markers were applied to me.  I kept thinking, "These things could at least be sparkly or have a Wonder Woman insignia on them or something."   I stepped up to the large ecru machine and the fun began.

Adjustments had to be made to the machine itself.  For those of you who don't know me IRL, I am absurdly tall.  Most of the time, I don't notice this at all.  I've never been short, so it's just normal life for me.  Sometimes, though, the reality of my height sneaks up on me in unexpected ways.  Today was one of them.  To be on the right level to scan the area in question, the machine had to be raised probably 18" from where it was previously.  The radiologist was petite.  This meant that once the machine was in the right position, she had to stand on her toes to get everything arranged properly.

Getting all the angles to make sure a full scan was completed involved having to tilt the scanner and reach around it in different ways.The process of having a mammogram struck me a little like getting a mugshot always seems to be in police shows, "Turn to your right.  Turn to your left.  Face the front." While I wasn't holding a placard with my name and id number in front of me, I had to do a bit of moving to make sure a comprehensive baseline of my breast tissue could be established.    As I was standing there with my cheek pressed against the machine, my arm wrapped around the side, eyes focused on its Fuji logo and breath held to prevent movement that might spoil the exposure, I couldn't help but think to myself, "I bet there is no test any man has to go through where they repeatedly have to hug a piece of medical equipment and then have delicate portions of their anatomy mashed flat."

The whole thing was much less painful than I had feared and fairly brief, too, as medical moments go.  I was putting my t-shirt back on and walking through the labyrinthine corridors of the hospital's imaging center much more quickly that I had expected.  I thanked my radiologist for an experience that was, if not exactly something I want to do on a daily basis, actually as comforting and well done as any such moment in life can be.  Then it was out into the sunshine of a blooming spring morning and back into my car to drive home.

As I hit the interstate, I started laughing.  It hurt.  Portions of my body that were, as Chandler says above, only intended by God to be treated nicely had been squeezed and compressed between two hard layers, after all.  I came back to the thought I'd had earlier about the differences in health care issues for men and women.  I wonder if there is anything men go through every year that even compares.  I don't know who'd I'd ask, but I'm curious. Through the "compressions," the held breaths, the gentle whirring of the machine in its processes, all I had been able to think of was that this is what it means to be a mature woman.  We find ourselves in moments of vulnerability, discomfort, and absurdity.

It's not a complaint exactly.  I am fairly sure that the twin processes women go through to ensure the various portions of their reproductive system are not trying to kill them, as unfun as these examinations are, actually create in us a kind of perspective.  Whether our feet are up in stirrups or we're hugging the mammogram scanner, maybe these moments center us and strip away trivialities.  They make us own these physical incarnations of ourselves whether we are comfortable with them or not, whether we've been taking good care of them or not, whether we find them a source for rejoicing, a source of dread, or a curious mixture in between.  We have to be totally honest about ourselves and with whatever healthcare provided is present, at least until we can put our clothing back on, pass through the heavy doors that always seem to separate the land of the waiting room from the land of the procedure, and re-enter whatever our lives outside that place may be.

I guess I could be sad about being older, about being of an age where routine screenings become required.  Instead, I found laughter in that radiology room, a sense of gratitude that issues from my past were settled now, a sense of comfort that I have medical professionals looking after me who will help me take care of any new ones that arise.

The Price

I read an article from a teacher blogger I follow about how she was rediscovering all these things she loved to do now that she has moved from what she called a "low-performance, low-support school" to what is apparently its opposite.  She's about 3/4 of the way through her first year there, and it's like she's coming back to life again.  The particular thing she was talking about was cooking, specifically baking.

I had such a mixed reaction about that article.  Part of me was felt happy that she was able to recover.  Part of me was more than a little jealous that she could.  Part of me was absolutely and completely numb, so tired and stressed and dead that I don't think it ever will be able to come back to life at all.

That last part is growing.

It made me look at my own life.  There are lots of things I used to love to do.  I liked to go work out, to swim and go to the gym.  I loved to cook, to have friends over and make food for them, to bake and take those things to other people and places.  I loved to fool around with plants, to do calligraphy and stained glass, to write.  I loved to research things, go around and get in trouble taking photographs, travel, have silly conversations online with people who were interested in the same things I am.

I do so little of any of that anymore.  I go to school.  I teach.  I come home.  I sleep.  Rinse.  Repeat.

It's not that I don't love what I do.  It's just that I am coming to believe that the price for it is a lot higher than I ever realized.  I also don't know what to do about it.  I still feel that I am where I am supposed to be.  What do I do if it uses me all the way up?  Is there something I should be doing to stop it from using me up?  Is there really anything I can do to prevent that?

Is this what life is supposed to be?

I feel very confused.  Well, at least part of me does.  The other part, that part of me that has turned to stone and that is slowly, slowly getting larger, can't quite work up the energy one way or the other....

Another Galaxy

I have been waiting for years, literally years, to upgrade my phone.  I got a Galaxy S4 and made the great leap from iPhone to Android, and I loved it.  Loved, loved, loved it.  I could customize it the way I wanted.  It was friendly with my PC.  It was sleek and lovely, and it made me as happy as any electronic device is going to be able to do.

But time went by....

It started being a little insufficient to the demands I was making on it about a year ago, but Samsung was going through its "no SD card" phase.  Since that was the primary feature I had changed operating systems for, I decided to wait it out and see what was coming with the S7.

Rumors abounded.  I saw some really crazy ones, too.  Finally, as we got closer to the release, it looked like the card slot was back and the battery life was a priority.  Despite the fact that my own phone needed charging at least twice a day and I had stripped the apps on it down to the minimum so it had enough memory to function, I kept the hope for better things.

Friday was AT&T's release day, and despite the rain, I took myself to my local shop and had them hook me up with the new model.  Life, at least as far as it can be controlled by a cellphone, was instantly better.  Apps that haven't worked right in awhile because they needed the Marshmallow update my S4 was no longer eligible to receive  were smooth and quick again.  There is no annoying warning constantly forecasting the End of All Things because memory is running out.  I could take pictures of all my dogs every second of my life and not fill up the storage.

To my astonishment, my Asus ZenWatch2 started making noises after it got the update it needed to match the phone.  It is constantly doing things I didn't know it was capable of now.  It is almost like it became a totally different device, too, just from being connected to a different phone.  Good.  All things are good.

I also noticed that it synched faster and sounded better with my car stereo system.  I don't know if that's a product of stronger bluetooth or what, but apparently, it also sounds much better for people who call me, too.

In fact, the only things I don't quite like are incredibly minimal.  I miss a certain sound I used to have for text notifications.  I also wish I could make the screens scroll endlessly like they did on my S4.  Both of these things are almost certainly correctable with a download or a setting I haven't been able to locate yet.  They're both so minimal, too, that they are practically non-existent.

It's nice to have confidence in my device again.  Even though I had the irrational moment of sadness when I turned off the S4 for the last time (a part of me always feels like I should have some kind of formal funeral for things like that when their useful life is done), reliability is a comfort.  The S7, then, isn't a revolutionary change.  It's a stronger, faster, more stable, and better version of everything I loved from my S4.  Good job, Samsung.  Very good job.