Bedrooms

{Lent 2024 brings me the opportunity to devote some time each day to write. It’s my Lenten discipline, such as it is. My theme this year (if you haven’t already guessed) is room(s). Today, try to stay awake.}

I recall writing a few years ago about a Julius LaRosa song I have on one of those compilation LPs, a demo record of sorts, spotlighting a variety of recording artists on a certain label. The song was “I Love My Bed.” Without taking the time to do a search of my previous mention of it, let me start afresh by connecting to the room in which most of us spend the majority of our time: the bedroom.

“I love my bed. I’m so happy when I’m in it; I love every lazy minute, in my bed.”

Joan’s heard me sing that as I get under the covers (that quilt!) at night. Or, sometimes, as I just consider getting out of bed in the morning. I don’t sing the whole song, but I could. And I’d mean it. We human beings are meant to spend a third of our lives in bed. Eight hours is generally best for most of us, though like any “rule” it doesn’t apply equally to everyone. But I like to aim at eight. There’s a coziness, a sense of security under the covers, mashing up the pillow ‘neath our heads, stretching out in an extra-long mattress (to accommodate what used to be my six foot length. (At my age, like the wicked waxing witch, I’m shrinking!!)

I used to be one of those we refer to as a “night person.” At least in my adulthood. In childhood, I had a firm bedtime, and recall those summer nights when this seven year-old was put to bed while hearing the neighborhood kids still playing outside in the setting sun. I complained, but I know now that Mom needed us three boys in bed so she’d have some time to decompress before her own bedtime.

But as an adult who often stayed up too late (too late for what?), there was no usual bedtime.

I still think about the nights I would be recording radio shows beyond the wee small hours of the morning, a situation dictated by available studio time in borrowed production rooms. I couldn’t get into the studios until the station personnel had left the building, and with the normal technical glitches one expected in recording studios, my work might carry me through the overnight until Alden Aaroe entered the station at 5 a.m. to read the hog futures on his morning show farm report. “Morning, Alden!” “Good night, Jeff.”

And there were those Saturday nights in parish ministry. It’s not that I let sermon prep go until the last minute. Honest! I’d begun the scriptural exegesis and study earlier in the week, contemplated the meaning of the text, considered how to structure the “proclamation of the Word,” and look for affective/effective illustrations. But sometimes the actual writing took me well past midnight Saturday night. I’d hit the bed thankful for the few hours rest I might get before the jangling alarm called me to attention and moved me to the shower.

But now, I thank God — literally–, that most nights I look forward to that slumber, that “I love my bed” feeling, whenever I feel like it. 10:30 p.m.? Midnight? Whenever. And I can sleep until my body says, “Enough, Kellam. Time to rise and shine. Or at least glow a little.” And then check the sleep app and see how I did. Yeah, a sleep app. We now have a smart bed. (Hey, at our age, it’s the last bed we’ll ever buy, so we got one, OK?) And every morning since we got that thing, Joan checks her app and I check mine to see how the night went. Silly, huh? We thought the novelty would wear off, but there’s still just this tiny bit of competition. When I announced at breakfast that my “Sleep Score” was 88, Joan said hers was 89. Drat! (When I told a medical pro about the smart bed and how it tracks even heart rate and something called “Heart Rate Variability,” he asked if the bed tracked the more intimate things a bed might be used for. I haven’t seen any evidence of that.)

I really do dislike the idea of setting an alarm to wake me from the bed I love. But life goes on and sometimes we do have to be sure we’re up at a certain time. We have a small digital clock that has a variety of sounds we can choose from, so we are awakened gently by birds: chirps, calls, and songs. I still don’t like it.

One more thing about the bedroom. It is the scene of dreams. I dream every single night. And many times. Now, our memory banks erase most of those fantasies, so that there’s room for the memories of our waking life, but I do recall bits and pieces, sometimes only the setting or the people involved. Certain themes repeat, but mostly I wonder at where these nightly dramas come from. Sure, something glimpsed the previous day might feed the subconscious “dreamweaver” (thank you, Gary Wright, for the term) an idea for a REM-produced vision. But other times, my gosh, where did that come from?!

One more thing about the room. There are, admittedly, some restless nights. Despite the cozy quilt, the desire and need for rest, the comfort of the mattress and pillow, there are times when, for some reason, we just can’t sleep. Restless legs? Anxiety about the next day? A simple itch? The room is dark, the bed encouraging, the quiet sufficient. But sleep escapes us. I’m rarely insomniac. But when I am, like everyone else, I toss and turn, and my app goes crazy. Ugh.

I suppose I could have added to this “room” essay some details about the furniture, the TV we never watch, the walk-in closet too full, or the portable audio players I listen to when going to bed earlier than usual, a Sony Walkman in the mix! Or, the prayers I say at bedtime as I recount the day and look for the sunrise. Sunrise? Ha! As if. But enough.

Sleep tight. Be at peace.

I’ve just closed my eyes again
Climbed aboard the dream weaver train
Driver take away my worries of today
And leave tomorrow behind

Ooh, ooh, dream weaver
I believe you can get me through the night
Ooh, ooh, dream weaver
I believe we can reach the morning light

(Gary Wright)

 

No Room to Move: Claustrophobia

{Writing of “room(s)” during this Lenten season (for some reason), yesterday’s blog celebrated the “roomy” lot that surrounded our Ithaca home. Today, a few words about having too little space to move around in.}

At my advanced age, it’s almost fun to say that I have a sports injury. What takes the fun away is the injury part. I tried fielding a baseball last summer and fell while bare-handing it. No, I don’t play baseball. I have a “pitch-back” net contraption in the backyard and enjoy having it toss back the balls I pitch at it. It’s good excercise. My breathing becomes labored, I have to walk a bit to retrieve balls that didn’t know where to land, and, well, I still have my old baseball glove from high school, and I like using it.

One of my favorite things: playing catch with Ty

But that one afternoon, the ball headed not toward my gloved left hand, but over my right shoulder. I lept up and caught that sucker with my bare right hand. And as I congratuated myself, I lost my balance and fell, gravity getting the best of me. Months later came the MRI. You know where I’m going with this, right? “Room-wise?” It’s a very tight space in that machine.

I’ve not struggled with claustrophobia much before. Oh, there are times when I find myself in a cramped space for too long, as in a plane. Or, the cheap balcony seats of our local concert hall. (Never trying to save money like that again. The person next to me poured into my space for the longest symphony I’ve endured.) And I’ve had MRIs before. But this time, I swear it seemed like my nose was close to touching the roof of the tunnel.

Pexels (photo from Mart Production)

Once I was shoved in there, I realized how close I was to filling the tube. I couldn’t imagine a larger person even fitting into the thing. Now, it wasn’t that tight in reality. It just seemed it. Once I was situated in there, the technician turned on the jazz I requested for the headphones to help muffle the magnetic clanking and grinding and humming that the MRI insists on making. I guess I had closed my eyes as I was entering the tunnel. May as well get comfy. When I made a quick look into my limited space, I saw how close my face was to the inside of the machine, and anxiety took hold. I quickly closed my eyes and determined to keep them closed for the duration. Just pretend you are somewhere else, Jeff. Maybe meditate or something. But, man, were those headphones crappy! The music was the right choice for me, but the fidelity was so tinny that calm meditation was impossible.

This is all very natural, of course. No one enjoys the MRI experience. And if one is not claustrophobic going in, one may well be coming out. But the good news is, we do come out.

The jackhammering, close-quartered monster confirmed a rotator cuff tear. Great.

Sorry to have bothered you with this organ recital about tight spaces and no room to move. Lesson one: we are lucky to have health care and competent medical professionals. Many don’t. Lesson two: it’d be good now and then, maybe best now, to get out and enjoy the wide open space of a neighborhood street or local park, or maybe just a front porch, where you can stretch, breathe, and escape the confines of any tight space you find yourself in. Even metaphorically.

 

The Gym

{I’m writing each day in Lent 2024, having given up nothing like Pepsi or chocolate. I’m giving up the time it takes to reflect on rooms in my life, maybe yours, or somebody’s. Autobiographical writings of wanderings and wonderings into certain spaces, with the occasional typo.}

Then there’s that big room with all the scary athletic equipment: the gym. Our gym is comparatively small, a locally owned business, not one of those big national workout chains. Part of the building is for physical therapy, and part for exercise and “training.” Ironically, this very building, now dedicated to good health and fitness, was once a restaurant, and I think ice cream may have been their speciality. Would that we could all make that conversion from fat to muscle.

Joan and I joined the place shortly after moving to this area. Unlike many who join gyms at New Years and then absent themselves from the establishment within weeks, we’ve been irregulars there for 14 years. Our intention was to go three times a week, and walk or bike the other days. We’ve taken breaks, sometimes because of breaks, i.e., bones…where the rehab part comes in. And sometimes because of vacations or viruses, like that COVID thing. (The gym kindly extended our membership for those months lost.)

Mostly we can fit in once or twice a week now. We are busy people. Walking and biking are so much more pleasant, but this is Upstate New York, and winters are long, cold, and not friendly to outdoor recreation. So, there’s that warm, big, inviting gym. OK, not “inviting.” We try to come up with excuses why going today isn’t right for the schedule. Too tired. Too busy with this or that. Too…due…to go to the gym. So, we do drive over. It’s only a few minutes away. (If it were a half-hour drive, well, forget it.) We don’t go in the mornings, and that’s my fault. I like putting it off as long as possible, thinking I’d like to get the day started with more important and engaging things, like Wordle. So, late in the afternoon, we change clothes, get our gym shoes, and head off. On rare occasions, we are the only ones there! But most of the time we see a handful of folks we know only from the gym: the town supervisor, the nun who runs a local charity, some students sporting school logos on their tees, and now and then THAT guy, the one who sets every strengthening machine up to the max, whose muscles are covered in tats, and whose gym stuff is left all over the floor where we change from street shoes to what the Brits call “trainers.” Joan would love to remind him that his mother isn’t here to pick up after him, but I’ve cautioned her that he could beat me up.

We start with 20-30 minutes on a machine named Cybex. Sounds like the monster in a grade B sci-fi movie. It’s an arc trainer gadget with various settings for upping the pain. But the most important thing is that it has space for an e-reader. I use earbuds to listen to the Real Jazz station on SiriusXM to block out the poorly-tuned radio station the gymrats like, and I read my book to block out the countdown clock that I swear is terribly slow. Joan’s on the machine next to me, and I pretend my earbuds block her from my labored breathing. (I know…it doesn’t work that way.)

Sure…like I smile all the time here

After that warm-up, it’s off to “the Cybex strength circuit,” as it’s called. Resistance training, right? I try to resist the whole thing, but I relent and spend another 20-30 minutes working out on those devices, sets and reps, etc. I think back to when I had set the weights and resistance tensions much higher. But I was 14 years younger back then. And didn’t have the rotator cuff issue, or the bad knee. But, hey, I’m still working out, right? Moving! Doing cardiac stuff. Breathing hard. Burning some calories. Building some muscle. Trying to put off the inevitable for as long as possible.

I may have mentioned before that I’m no athlete. Brother Kim did track, brother Steve played football. I took pictures. And after two required years of phys. ed. in college, my physical activity and “training” stopped. When we had bult a new home across the road from a county park, I began developing an interest in some small steps toward working out. I ran the jogging trail and did the exercise stations along the way. And I meditated on the First Song of Isaiah as I did it. “Surely it is God who saves me; (pant) I will trust the Lord and not be afraid…” (pant). Then there were the bicycles, and in moving to Vermont, cross-country skiing, a wonderful way to keep warm in -15 morning temps. More biking and hiking back in New York State.

Today, I should, right now, go to the gym. But there was the doctor’s appointment miles away this morning, paying bills this afternoon, and now this writing thing. And church tonight. So maybe tomorrow. There’s always tomorrow. Until there isn’t. So, we’ll be sure to get to that room before tomorrow’s sun sets. We’ll say hi to Cybex for you.

Joan at work at the gym

 

In the Exam Room

{Another in a series about “room.” Forty days=forty rooms. Maybe.}

By pure luck, this elderly writer has medical consults three days in a row. That got me thinking about doctors’ offices and examination rooms. Of course, while we probably spend more time in waiting rooms than in the actual presence of the physician in the examination room, that smaller and more private room is far more interesting to write about.

For one thing, it’s scarier. That’s why our blood pressure goes up as we wait for the grand entrance of the one in charge. The white coat syndrome? It’s real. I found this on the website of the Cleveland Clinic, so it has to be accurate: If you have white coat hypertension, you may feel nervous when you get to your healthcare provider’s office. This nervous feeling may get worse when you go into the exam room and get a blood pressure measurement. Routine check up, blood draw, test results? No matter. And little reason for the nurse to take your blood pressure at that point. It won’t be accurate.

You’ve already been waiting for a time in what I call the “sick room” with all those other people seeking medical attention. Now, you’ve been called into your own little space for “vitals” and some preliminary questioning before the actual physician enters. Am I safe at home? What meds are you taking? (Good grief! I took fifteen minutes to write it all down on the clipboard before I came in here. Don’t you people share?) All that is kind of like the opening act at a concert that leads to the main event. Except no lasers and smoke machines. The nurse exits, and you wait. Maybe there’s time to check your Facebook or email. Or, you just check out the room itself.

Yesterday I noticed two simple chairs, a short stool with wheels, a computer, some pictures relating to the doc’s specialty (so he/she can point out where your problem lies), a counter with various routine medical supplies, a receptacle for disposing of truly dangerous stuff like used gloves and syringes, and the examination table, covered in that roll of paper you assume (hope!) they change between patients. And the sink. On the wall over that table is a sign warning that children shouldn’t be left alone on the table. Oh, that never occurred to me, but it did to the lawyers.

In another such room I will occupy this week, there will be helpful models of anatomical bits, one “normal” and one or two signalling problems. You’ve probably seen illustrative posters of muscles and arteries and body parts on those four walls surrounding you as you wait for the doctor. Better to check email. Sometimes you’ll see diplomas and certificates, as if to prove the person treating you is qualified to do so. Except one time the diploma belonged to long-retired doc who didn’t bother taking it home.

Much of my time in these rooms is focused on check-ups. Just tracking how I’m doing with BP, skin, PSA levels, the shoulder issue. Once those physicians have finished their exams and answered the questions I remembered to ask, my blood pressure goes down, I follow the arrows to the exit, maybe make another appointment for the magic six month window, and head for the car.

I’m treating this lightly, I know. But sometimes once the main event arrives, the news is far from routine. That one visit to the examination room leads to another and another and maybe to the hospital eventually. I once got a troubling result from a routine blood test, and my doctor (my “PCP”) referred me to an oncologist for further testing. Frightening. A couple of weeks later, after a further test, Joan and I nervously moved from the waiting room to the exam room. The specialist entered. He wore a sport coat. He explained that if there had been a serious “issue,” he’d have come in dressed in a physician’s white coat. “But I have good news! All’s well.” Turns out that the initial blood test was an anomaly; there was some problem with the blood draw, maybe something with the test tube? Anyway, the doc sent us away and said he didn’t want to see us again. The car was full of sighs of relief and prayers of gratitude on the way home.

We’ve certainly spent lots of time in those small rooms, especially as we’ve aged. And we are blessed to have received better than average care, as well as insurance that has kept us both healthy and solvent. Not everyone has access to the good care we receive. All of us, dear reader, have to keep that in mind, and do what we can to make healthcare available and affordable to everyone.

Everyone.