poetry – somethinggrand

4-month Strokeaversary: Back to the Future

Back to Work

As I got out of the passenger seat with my backpack, and teetered through the snowstorm, slightly off balance, to teach my first class in over four months at Saint Francis Xavier University, Sara rolled down the window and looked proudly yet worriedly on. I went a few steps, then stopped and glanced back. “It’s like being in grade one!” I shouted. She laughed. “That’s what I was thinking!”

That first class, and those in weeks since, have gone well, all things considered, four months after a major stroke. I have over 50 lovely students for RELS 210 Bible and Film. I do find I have to stop speaking sometimes to swallow and to catch my breath, problems I never had before. And I’m exhausted at the end of the 75 minutes. When I go to leave the amphitheatre through the doors located at the top/back, I need to look for which side has a handrail to the right. But I find I can stand for almost the whole lecture. Kudos to the current chair of our department, Dr. Robert Kennedy, for suggesting that for the first part of term at least, I do half of my teaching online to save energy.

I was privileged last week to be invited by Katie Murphy, a member of StFX’s rugby team who’s been in several of my classes, to attend the Academic All-Canadian Awards breakfast as her one guest. Each Academic All-Canadian is a student athlete who maintains an average over 80% while excelling at their sport. They get to invite one favourite prof to the breakfast. Sara had the honour of being invited too, by another scholar-athlete, Myro Zastavnyy, who plays soccer. He got the highest mark in her New Testament class last term. All went fine, but a trip back and forth to a buffet table with breakfast in hand presents challenges I’ve never had to deal with before. Katie was a great help. She quipped, “once a server, always a server,” as she carried her own breakfast and some of mine back to our table.

Back to Mobility

Recently, I took my first solo drive in four months. As the kind clerk from the Nova Scotia Motor Vehicle Division assured me: “since your medical has come in all clear, there’s no reason you can’t drive right now. Just be sure to take the test again.” I have to retake both my written and road tests before the end of February, or my license will be suspended.

Off I went. It felt great – and a little scary – to be back motoring out in the big wild world all on my own like that. My first independent excursion since September. I took advantage of my first solo trip to head all the way to town to buy a pair of pull-on winter boots. I can now do up zippers fairly consistently (thanks to my friend Ken Wilson‘s gift of zipper pulls). But tying shoes? I managed to do one lace for Sara’s father’s 90th in Moncton. But it took me over five minutes, tired me right out, and even then it was loose. Pull-on boots for now.

I love two things about the photo of my prayer below from Winston Parks’s big birthday. One is that the Mayor of Moncton, Dawn Arnold, is behind me. Sara has admired her for decades, and tagged her in the facebook invitation. It was a privilege to have her there. The other is that two different members of my family, my son Daniel and my sister-in-law Barbara, when they saw the photo on the right, instantly celebrated the fact that I was holding my remarks in my left hand.

Back to the Hospital (as an outpatient)

Twice a week I drive myself to St. Martha’s Hospital. There I spend a half-hour under Jay’s watchful eye: walking on my heels, walking backwards, side-stepping, and doing high leg-lift marching that reminds me of what we used to do in high-school sports practise.

I still don’t have the left-foot strength to walk consistently on my toes, nor is my “normal” gait that smooth. But I’m getting better every week. After physio, my new Rehabilitation Assistant, Janna, takes over and guides me through 45 minutes of hand and finger exercises. I’m VERY fortunate to still be receiving this level of care! (Please, for my sake and yours, never vote for a party that has designs to privatise healthcare any more than some provinces already are!)

Back Home

This weekend, for the first time, I ventured across our driveway to spent an hour “working out” (I use that term gently) in our crowded insulated shed. Before Christmas, my brother and sister-in-law cleared space and set up the recumbent bicycle and the treadmill (from Sara’s parents’ recent move to an apartment) for me. It was great to listen to a podcast and just get my legs going. There have been both mice and a resident squirrel inside that space in the last year. We cleaned it thoroughly last summer and employed many mouse-proofing tactics, but while I pedalled I kept my eye out just in case.

I have a full home physio routine which includes wrist exercises, doing leg lifts and arm raises, and giving my left hand the “TENS” treatment of low-level electrical current at least 30 minutes a day. I can now sometimes pick up pennies off a table with my left hand and drop them into a pill bottle, arm extended. Although I still have to use my right hand to guide my left, I can now make clearer chords on my guitar. You should see me wipe a counter! It’s a messy business. A big part of my home-work is using my left hand as much as possible to do daily tasks. I think it’s funny that as spastic as I am, Sara still trusts me to wash the crystal (and so close to the cast iron).

In some ways, it’s my expectations that are now changing. Rather than being surprised (and overjoyed) simply to be able to move my arm and hand again at all, these days more and more I find myself reaching for something, say a bar of soap, with my left hand without thinking. Then I’m surprised (and slightly disappointed) when my arm won’t extend that far, or my arm won’t straighten or fingers won’t open enough to grab it. My left hand looks and acts rather like one of those arcade claw machines, like in the movie Toy Story.

On my new low-sodium regime, I allow myself to buy these salted veggie-stix on one condition: I’m only allowed to eat them with my left hand!

I can finally, sometimes, extend my arm straight forward in a “cheers” motion. But I would never be able to hold a heavy pint of German beer in that position! I’m lifting a three pound weight for bicep curls and doing tricep work with a stretch band. Laughably light loads, but a start!

And now that I’m home, I’m noticing some more subtle stroke effects. My eyesight isn’t quite as good as before the stroke. My taste buds continue to be “off” especially around sugars and bread products (that might be the COVID I caught in hospital). And my hearing is slightly, but noticeably, worse…not so much in terms of volume, but when trying to distinguish “t”s, “d”s and the like. I keep reminding myself of how fortunate I am, and how much more damage the stroke might have done. I can use both arms for a hug. That’s worth a lot! And cooking can be the most fun home therapy of all (photo below from my youngest – Gabe’s – visit with us over Christmas, which was a joy). I’m glad that Sara didn’t mind that all my (few) presents for her were from the hospital gift shop!

Back to Writing

All fall in the hospital, it was hard to concentrate on my research project on Jerome with my fatigue, frequent interruptions, and (most welcome!) intensive rehab regime. It was Sara’s suggestion that I use some of my isolation time to get back into writing smaller things, like poetry. I came up with a small collection, which I’m submitting to a provincial competition this week. I can’t share it here (since it must be “unpublished work”), but please keep your fingers crossed for me.

I also turned around the copy-edited proofs for Someone Elses’ Saint: How a Scottish Pilgrimage Led to Nova Scotia, due out in Spring 2025.

My big question mark is typing. If I can figure out a less sensitive keyboard for practise, I’d like to try typing while including my curly-fingered left hand, just to keep those left muscle memories alive. That’s on the to-do list. I sometimes use dictation, but that isn’t the way I am most comfortable composing and the results end up different!

Back to Gratitude

I’m still SO humbled for the ways I was supported all through my time in hospital by so many of you. Thank you! I get rushes of gratitude when I see the cards or when someone contacts me to check on how I’m doing. The postal strike gave us a kind of unexpected blessing, in that here we are in January and I’m still getting cards that were hibernating during the strike. Special recent thanks to Nadine and Phil for the so-very thoughtful box of individually wrapped and labelled goodies, and to George Greenia, who made it an Advent discipline last fall to mail us a steady stream of fun little cards of support, only to have them stack up with Canada Post and arrive all at once this week! Those of you who know George know that in addition to his kind heart he has a cheeky sense of humour. I’ll leave you with one of his mailings as an example!

I was also touched when our friend Amanda texted Sara the week after I got home, to ask, “When is Matthew’s weekly stroke report coming out? Mom and I look forward to it every Sunday.” What a miracle, to write one’s experiences and hopes into the ether, and have them land in the hearts of others.

What’s in a Veil?

(a spoken word performed Feb 10, 2013 Waterloo ON)

When you were born,
you came out of the womb (well, let’s be honest)
you came out a prune,
All wrinkly, squinty-eyed and pointy-headed.

Your parents held you
in trembling, coltish new-parent arms and
they said:
How beautiful
when what they really meant was:
how terrifying.
Then they glanced sideways at each other, with that innocent , easy,
never-to-be-repeated conspiracy of those
who have just, together, somehow stumbled into creating life,
and they knew
they just KNEW, that they would have to:
bundle you up,
and put you in the car,
and actually take you home,
And that was frightening.
But there was something even more frightening to do first.
The hospital came with the forms to fill out.
The nurse stood, hands on hips, and said: you can’t leave until you’ve done this.
And your parents then turned to each other and said:
have we decided, finally?

How shall we veil him?

It was a big responsibility, when they veiled you, their new baby,
their pride, their joy.
After all, it was all about YOU.
You were the one who had to live with this decision your whole life.
Was it a veil the other kids would tease you for?
Was it a veil that stood out, or a veil that blended in?
And back then, who was to know?
Imagine back, as if you were looking at one of those old Polaroid shots.
You know the ones. Of camping in the tent trailer.
The photos where someone’s wearing those denim shorts that were too tight, and that tee-shirt, and with that hair-do, can you believe it?
And those veils….so psychedelic. So sixties.
Imagine that.
And imagine, then,
what they must have been thinking, when they gave you your veil.
They must have asked themselves:
Is it a veil that , if they chose just right, might get you ahead, might get you noticed?
Was it a veil to push you past all those others fighting for jobs, for recognition, for security?
For love?
You see? You see how important it was?
Veiling shouldn’t just be left to chance.
But almost always, it is.

Or was the veil they chose for you a veil that’s too historical, too old-fashioned?
A sepia-tinted fabric that looked better on your grandparents, maybe, in the old country?
Maybe it was a veil for different times, another world, a different tongue,
a foreign soil and syllable and sun.
A rough, peasant fabric that worked then, not now.
Was yours a veil like that?

Oh, it must have been hard for them.
Because on the other hand, if parents aren’t careful, the veil can be too trendy.
A good idea at the time. But now?
Passé, like tomorrow’s stale croissants.
The kind of veil one sees on the front cover
of some glossy magazine at the supermarket,
and without thinking, gasps: oh, that’s a good one!
But! Hah. But:
ten years from today? It’ll look like the kerchief worn by some forgotten movie star,
the Jessicas and Justins and Jonnys and Brittainys and Ashleys,
Fabric abandoned to the bin of “cute, but didn’t last.”
Too flimsy, too changeable, too vapid and faddish.
Nothing dire.
Just, not enough there to protect, or inspire.
Or to add uniqueness
to the warp and weave that is life.

You’d think choosing how to veil a child a decision too big for most parents,
Which is maybe why we don’t think. Don’t decide. Aren’t conscious about it.
And then we live with the consequences.

Some people don’t, of course.
Live with the consequences, I mean.
The young woman I saw the other day who held out her arms to me for a book?
She’d forgotten.
But I saw.
Old scars, thankfully,
there, on her forearms.
She made those scars, I imagine, cutting off that first veil,
the veil her parents chose for her,
the veil drawn tighter and tighter around her by school,
and family, and relatives, and parties and trying to be someone else, and….
And maybe most of all, by herself,
A veil she couldn’t, what’s the word?
Suffer.
Until, suffocating,
in her rush to lose that first veil, it was – it must have been –
like shedding skin.

Oh, but men don’t wear veils, says the fellow sitting at the corner table,
in sunglasses, when there’s no sun,
Inside.
“Men don’t wear veils because we don’t have to,” he says – from behind his shades.
But I can barely hear him.
His voice is muffled, his veil so thick.
It’s the masculine veil, made of old superhero costumes, and football jerseys,
and beer ads carefully cut out, and hockey tape, and boasting, and NOT saying anything. It’s a patchwork made of hot cocoa and the camouflage pajamas he wore in grade two,
a veil of toughness. Even though he might secretly like to try vulnerable, he can’t.
Any tell-tale feminine colours acarefully covered over, or scribbled out.

“I don’t wear a veil either” pipes in the young woman at the other table,
“that’s those other people. You know, the religious ones.”
But I can barely see her, either,
through the shimmer of the lip gloss she had to have, like all her friends,
in grade six, the curtain of some celebrity’s perfume,
Her veil is colourful, made up of names and brands, tops by GAP,
cigarettes she smoked to fit in,
creams, conditioners, colours, her veil threaded through, incredibly, with her own skin.
Spelling the word sexy. Even though she mostly just looks afraid.
No.
No veil there.

That first veil? The one that comes home with us from the hospital?
It seems so natural we hardly know it’s there. Some folks never realise.
But it is.
Indulge me. Take a second, now,
and feel it. Maybe you’ve forgotten even that you’re wearing it.
But I’m here today to remind you.
It’s okay: reach up, and put your hands on your cheek.
Can you feel it?
Take a moment. It’s safe. Try it. Remember.
Place some of the gauzy material between your thumb and forefinger.
And give it a gentle rub.
What threads do you feel there? Are they smooth? Rough? A mixture?
All those half-hidden threads showing which aunt had a drinking problem,
which overly-religious uncle scared us half-to-death with stories of hell,
which father wasn’t there, or maybe was too-much there. The mother who bandaged you up when you fell.
Or didn’t.
The babysitters and books and recesses and graduations.
All those platitudes are there too, sewn in:
when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Always wear a smile.
Make a success of yourself. We’re proud of you.
All those threads, and more:
The bed-times with your siblings,
the preachers, the teachers, your first love, the first death, the first job, the time you didn’t think you’d make it through,
but you did.
Your last kiss.
What you were taught and what you just learned, period.
All those people who contributed one thread, even just one,
Or another.
I hope you can feel that cloth, and what’s in it.

That’s the thing about veils.
Although the basic fabric’s usually what we’ve been given,
they rarely stay the same.
We improvise,
or better: we are the cloth upon which improvisation happens.
Our experiences change us, catching textures like burrs on a cross-country walk,
We find ourselves shimmering just a moment with the colours
of someone we just met,
and maybe, knowing them long enough,
we take on some of that hue
permanently.

Did you know that even Emperor Augustus veiled himself
when offering sacrifice to the gods?
Moses covered up his glory.
Veils imply a limit, a protection,
a recognition that what’s within is not the same as what’s without.
A boundary, of sorts.
A story.

And even to my friend who once confided to me
“clothes are an improvement on the body”
I would answer this:
until truly, we are transformed from one degree of glory to another, I know:
Our veils will rise from sleep with us,
And go down to our dreams covering our heads.
But, at least, let us make them as nearly US, the outside reflecting the in, as we possibly can.
So that, when what is hidden is revealed,
and the dainty lace and cowboy flannel and urban black and country brown all removed,
unveiled and naked,
we stand before each other, and our God.
It will not so much be a surprise as a place to hear what is unbelievably, happily, graciously, true:
You are still a prune.
“And before you were named,
before you were veiled,
I knew you thus, all along.”