The Poetry, Essays and Personal Journals of Larry L. Dill
Turning the Corner
From the Journals of Deborah J. Gaddy
August 26, 2009
With an Afterword by Larry L. Dill
Nine years ago today I was standing on a ladder finishing the last bit of chinking between logs at the cabin at Rabbit Rock. It was significant for a number of reasons. I’d been working on that chinking since June of 1998 when the cabin first started taking shape. Larry had since moved back to Texas and all I needed to do was show up there every weekend on the mountain with a trowel in hand and finish. It took me two years. It was significant that day because finally I’d managed to close all the gaps “in a concrete way.”
On the last draw of the trowel and the broom across the wet cement, I realized that the moment had come to make a memorial to the effort. With a stick and my fingers I drew a little rabbit in wet cement and wrote the date of completion. It is there today on the back porch to the left of the door to remind me that I’d turned a corner that day--that when I returned to the cabin the next time, I would actually get to sit down and just enjoy being there--not having to immediately upon arrival start mixing mud and working until I couldn’t see in the dark.
That day was significant too, because by the next weekend I would be on my way to Alaska on a cruise ship with my cousins--a first on all counts.
It was nice to think that I'd managed to finally complete an enormous task right before embarking on an exciting adventure to new places and new things.
Significant change has always come for me this time of year, but when it happens it's big--big enough to notice.
This year is no different--I didn't see it coming but it's here.
For the last six months Larry and I have been planning a trip to London where his daughter and husband live and work now. I'd been there a couple of times almost 30 years ago but it's a first for Larry. We had planned to go this summer--meaning June, July or August--but things didn't work out in the time and money department so we finally set it for September 6, right before Labor Day. I'm staying two weeks--he's staying a month and we've been planning all the details since locking in the airline tickets.
One of the many details included luggage and travel supplies for the trip. We both have a fondness for coffee first thing in the a.m. and one item he definitely wanted to bring was a “stinger”--a little heating coil you can plug in to heat a cup of water for instant coffee when nothing else is available. I knew exactly where it was in my luggage in my closet. So to get that out of the way I went into the closet, found it in its little backpack bag and noticed that there was some white mold growing on the leather luggage handles and some boots and shoes in the floor of the closet. I mentioned the mold just as a comment as I proudly handed over the “stinger.”
Larry immediately volunteered to clean the closet, knowing that I was allergic to mold. He did just that the next day while I was at work and by the following morning he was coming down with a “bad cold.” By the next morning I was coming down with the same symptoms. "Well,” he said, “at least we’ve got it now and can get over it before we leave for London. We have three weeks.” Two weeks later, four doctors and lots of meds and x-rays, we are both recovering from what turned out to be bacterial lung infections from our exposure to the mold.
We turned a corner today--both finally beginning to feel almost normal and that we might actually get to London after all--his situation still complicated by an unrelated gout attack and mine by extreme allergies. He could barely walk. I could barely breathe. It could have been hilarious if it weren’t so frightening.
I know that we’ve both learned lots of things--different things--from this ordeal. For me it’s definitely one of those life changing, turn-the-corner moments:
I don’t need Stuff! I want to get rid of Stuff! If it doesn’t bring me joy or feed my mind and body then I don’t want it.
The things and places from the happiest moments in my childhood are still the things that make me happy as an adult.
Beauty and music are very important to my life. They nourish all the things that keep me healthy. I knew this already but my priorities faded into everyday “habits.”
I’m changing that--making life simple--remembering that my friends and my health are the two top priorities. I can’t decide which one is over the other. They both go together.
So today, August 26, 2009 I turned another corner. I’m feeling good. I’m getting better. I have lots of things to look forward to. And just like nine years ago on the cabin wall I had to just write it down to celebrate.
--Deborah Gaddy
Waynesville, North Carolina
Throughout this unsettling summer of our discontent, Deborah and I (thanks to Netflix) have been working our way through the entire collection of the HBO series, "In Treatment," which stars Gabriel Byrne and Dianne Wiest. It is the story of a psychotherapist with as many problems as his patients and his therapist whose weekly "de-briefings" continue to throw light upon the fact that no matter how smart you are, you are quite likely to be as unaware of your own blind spots as people with half your mental or visual acuity. It is a sobering experience to watch unfold in a television drama. But it is even more sobering to see the lessons in it for your own life.
The essence of Freudian psychotherapy (or Zen Buddhism for that matter) is the Aha! moment. Insight. A turning point in your understanding of yourself, your values, the meaning of life, etc., etc.
This past Saturday, I got up and turned on the computer, as I do every day when I have a computer connected to the internet and was pleasantly surprised to be able to watch the funeral of Ted Kennedy live on the New York Times website. I sat there mesmerized for more than two hours. It was the most beautiful funeral I had ever seen. An elegant Catholic Mass, stunning musical performances by Placido Domingo and Yo Yo Ma, heartbreaking memorials to their father by Kennedy's two grown sons who it seems only barely survived their own childhood diseases through the fortitude and sheer will power of their beloved father. And an eloquent and very personal eulogy by the President of the United States.
Still, I knew, as did anyone who knew the rough outlines of Ted Kennedy's life, that there had been a turning point. and that turning point was the coda for Ted Kennedy's salvation. Some have suggested it was the tragedy of his brothers' deaths. Others said it was Chappaquiddick. Still others saw it as the loss of his one and only bid for the Presidency. President Obama, for his part, seemed to imply that it was the love and dedication of a good woman.
Something, some private insight, some Aha! moment, turned Ted Kennedy from a privileged little brother into a statesman. He most surely took that secret with him to his grave. But he left behind a fine legacy. And so can we all. Turning a corner as Deborah feels she has on more than one occasion in her life is the very definition of hope. New hope in fact. The essential element in the regeneration of the human spirit.
--Larry L. Dill
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