Out in the Cold

July 5 - July 10

July 5

My throat started scratching a little on Sunday, and by Monday night it was a full-fledged energy-draining cold. Summer colds are the worst. Maybe it was poor judgment, but I went to school, to bible study, to work on Tuesday. The next day was the Fourth of July, a day off, and I figured I could endure until then.

On the morning of the Fourth I was feeling a little better. The Koehns were coming over, and it was to be another family social thing. I was still drained, so I wasn’t looking forward to a long afternoon and I wasn’t really hungry either, but I’d be polite about it. 

I kept to myself for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, and then the doorbell rang.   I opened the door for the Koehns. “Come on in,” I said, then went up the five stairs to our kitchen, where Mom was standing.

“Jon,” she said, “is it all right if you eat in the kitchen?” 

I didn’t understand at first, then —of course, it was because of my cold. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll just go downstairs, in front of the TV.” After that I kept completely to myself until the Koehns left, which they did four hours later. 

For the rest of the day I still avoided the family, but while I was in the kitchen, later in the evening, Mom called from the living room. “Jon, I’m sorry.” “It’s all right,” I said, but really I didn’t want to talk about it.

That was yesterday. Before I move on to today’s episode, I should explain why I was moody about being quarantined. After all, it was reasonable that I should stay away from Don and Josh. They have fewer white blood cells because of their chemotherapy, so they are more susceptible to and more in danger of the cold virus. And I shouldn’t be selfish, but yesterday, before the Koehns came, the potential problem hadn’t really occurred to me. It was certainly my ignorance, I’ll admit, and when Mom brought it up I think I realized immediately that she was right. But I wasn’t going to sit in the kitchen, apart from the family but still in view. I didn’t mean to offend by this decision, and I think if Mom had told me a few minutes before the Koehns came, there might have been a little less drama. I still wouldn’t have sat in the kitchen —a question of dignity, I guess —but maybe I could have got Mom to understand. As it was, while my cold and my standoffishness was offending, I appeared, and was, offended.

Anyway, Mom said she was sorry, five or six hours later, and I said it was all right.

Until today. I was feeling a little better when I went down for breakfast. I had the kitchen to myself. I was reading the paper and had just finished my bowl of cereal when Mom came in and said, “Jon, I meant it about you staying away from people. Will you please leave the room?” And I was offended all over again. I blew up. I swore, I breathed offensive germs in her face. She kicked me, slapped my face, told me to go to my room, no, get out of the house. And I said, okay, I would. But what was she sorry about yesterday, I wondered. She was sorry for being brash, she said. She wasn’t sorry for wanting me away from those who didn’t have a cold. Understandable, but still I argued. “I didn’t ask for the cold,” I said. “And nobody in this house asked for cancer,” she said. No, that’s true, and with that she rendered me speechless.

I went upstairs, packed my overnight bag. But I had a response for her, bubbling within me. “They didn’t ask for cancer, and they didn’t have to ask for the love and respect they’ve been given. I’ve just got a measly cold, so I suppose I shouldn’t expect very much love or respect at all. And you sure are delivering it proportionately.” Of course I was being very selfish, but as I drove off to find a motel I considered that I wasn’t screaming for love, just a little respect, enough to eat breakfast and read the paper in the kitchen alone. Didn’t she originally say the kitchen was my confinement anyway? I was still steaming, several hours later.

I’m in the cheap motel right now, for tonight and maybe for tomorrow. Maybe this is for the best. I will recover here and I won’t be contagious, and I might get some long needed rest. And I’ll have time to think and catch up on school work, and maybe I’ll even write a story.

God, it’s foolish of me to ever have to ask you for humility. It is always there for the taking, and I might have simply accepted it a dozen times in these last two days, but each time I would not let go of my pride. Even now, I could return home, apologize and go quietly up to my room until I got better. But I’d probably screw it up if I tried to do that. Help me God to humbly accept whatever you give me. Forgive me for passing up the chances. And see me through.

⇋

          He’s living, he’s dying

          she’s quiet, she’s crying,

          and look at me, I’m none of these

          and slowly going crazy.

          And he’s working and she’s playing,

          and —how would they term my deliberating?

          Poor dullboy Jack, 

          he’s never gonna win.

          They’re praying all the time,

          and I’m praying right beside them

          but it’s what we’re doing in between

          that’s gonna save us in the end. See?

          He’s living and he’s dying

          and she’s quiet and she’s crying,

          and I run on like my prayers 

          hadn’t said a goddamn thing.

          So let him live, God, he deserves it,

          and let him die, he’s well-prepared.

          Let her find her peace in you

          and let her cry right in your ear.

          But God just let me be

          among the living dying sitting crying

          God just let me be

          no more in limbo

          that’s my prayer.

⇋

July 6

I’m still here, for at least one more night. I still have the cold.

It’s a weird guilt I’m trying to sort out. I’m feeling sorry, because it’s been hard for Mom, with her husband and her youngest son both stricken with cancer. And I have no justification to make matters worse. But then I can’t help wondering —maybe being away from home is the best thing while I have this cold. What good could I do at home? This isn’t feeling sorry for myself. I’m being logical. And I want to feel sorry for what I’ve done, but I want to keep coming to this logic, as if I’ve inadvertently done the right thing and just can’t deny it.

Oh, I’m still ashamed. I called Mom every name in the book, I coughed in her face, I raised a fist —and I walked away with the lousy rationale that I had been provoked. And I’m still feeling like leaning on that rationale, even though I know I shouldn’t.

Tomorrow will be a hard day. On top of everything, I’m not sure my cold will be gone. Maybe I’ll call first, apologize and offer to stay away until the cold disappears. That sounds phony, I know, but I should propose that sincerely. God stay with me tomorrow, as ever. I need you.

July 8

Still in the hotel. Called Mom yesterday, patched things up nicely. I am forgiven. But I stayed one more night here, trying to beat the last of the cold. I’m recovering, but now I’m all constipated; I think it’s from all the medicine I’ve been taking. Anyway, last night at 4 am I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to a nearby 7-11 and bought some Ex-Lax. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep.

My homework is done for this week. This has been a productive time. I still have to write one more short story that I feel good about, and that’s hard to do. It’s not due for a couple more weeks, but time has a way of flying.

Two weeks until Parul gets back.

Will it always be the same? I talked to Josh tonight. He’s very tired after taking a round trip sailboat ride between Chicago and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Well, Josh, you know how to live. Anyway, we talked, and I realized some troubling things about myself, selfish thoughts beyond the imbalance of his weekend and mine, and now the lead question rings in several directions.

Will I ever be able to forgive Mom for kicking me out of the house for having a cold? Will I ever forgive myself for a foolish provocation? Will I get over the uncomfortable feeling that it’s best that I had been out of the way? God that’s a scary feeling, and yet it feels like it will eternally recur. Does it have to be this way?

As I talked to Josh, I privately thought that things would be okay once I got past some “X” stage of my life. But what stage? When I move out for good? When (and if) I ever get a career going? When I’m married, have kids? When I retire? When I die? God I don’t want to go through any of that if it’s just more of the same. It all seems so scary. Will it always be this way?

I realize, too, that nothing I’ve written in this journal will impress anybody, but after today I feel like at least doctors will want to take a look. God, God, God, God, God, God, God, you’re out there, aren’t you? Bless Mom. Bless Don. Bless Josh.

July 9

Everything is tied to the ego, and it’s either paradoxical or its cyclic. My ego does not get fed, I feel bad, I work to do good, I achieve, my ego is fed, I feel good, I work less, I don’t produce, my ego isn’t fed again and once more I strive. So it is cyclic, and it’s beautiful to achieve, but it’s still paradoxical. I’ll never do good, never be a good writer, unless I fell like shit now and then, and I’ll never feel like shit except that I do less than good, and even bad, now and again. The challenge is to find the beauty on this side of it.

July 10

Sometimes it works for me. Sometimes I put something down in writing and it feels good, both to write and, later, to read.

I’ve got to stop thinking it’s something that just happens though. I’ve got to start looking at it as something to work towards, with the diligence that the desire demands. I recently saw, in some of Hemingway’s notes, how he worked at it and how he developed his talent with the help of people he knew and/or read. This is not to say that I have to develop my skills by the Hemingway method, but just waiting for it to happen is probably not a good alternative.

I’m feeling better now, compared to several days ago. Part of it is the writing —I’ve written a lot of pages these last few days —but also this: my return to the routines on and around campus included my weekly bible study, this morning on Luke 16. We had a good look at a hard chapter.

I shouldn’t be proud though, I guess. Really, today I should feel terrible. This morning on my walking routine I covered the area south of Maxwell Street. What a sad part of Chicago! It’s several blocks of what is basically a junkyard. No, worse than that. There’s nothing enterpreneurable about it, nothing like Sanford and Sons, that is, but you still see people trying to sell tires and hubcaps. And even worse than that, people live among the junk in make-shift tents of boards and metal, in busted up cars and buses, alongside the piles of tires. It is not all junkyard: there is a border area of condemned buildings, boarded up and broken down. And several blocks away, in several directions, is the CHA. I am ashamed.