“Hold this moment forever, I tell myself; it may never come again.”-Pico Iyer
With a family wedding approaching and house guests arriving soon from distant shores, the wave of readiness and preparation – freshly painted rooms, new furnishings, curtains etc.- that has been going through our house is finally knocking at the door of my study.
Lest it be perceived that this is a major issue or a deficiency on my part, let it be known that this room that also functions as a remote office and library is meticulously cleaned, dusted, and vacuumed professionally, bi-weekly.
A more accurate observation, as you look around, would be that a paperless mode has not been wholeheartedly embraced by its sole occupant. An entire shelf of day planners might be visible, along with many notebooks with jottings and various entries some mundane, others pithy and a few even illegible. Also, lots of books.
The Mrs. with her bestie Debbie, has thinned out the bookshelves and what must be discarded, in their opinion, has been placed in a large cardboard box destined for recycling.
I reach into the box and retrieve a Moleskin from 2019 and flip through it.
Photo: Daily planners
Jan 22,2019, 6 PM: Lecture by Dr. Neel Barnard, on plant-based diet, Hope Club.
Jan 23: Day# 1, back to vegan diet again.
Feb 2019: Read The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee and The Witch Elm by Tana French.
Feb 9, 2019: Attended meeting of the Health Care Club, Harvard Business School with my colleague Dr. Dave D. Amazing event!
Another entry: “Pricing is opaque, middlemen prevalent, customer service an afterthought.”
Note to self :“Don’t buy into your own myth.”
“ …dissolve a sense of self within something larger and less temporary.”
Looked up some words- vituperative (bitter, insulting).
March 11- “Boyfriends (or girlfriends) come, and boyfriends go but SAT score is forever.”
Dec 13: Flight: Boston– Delhi-Cairo-Istanbul-Boston.
And so on.
A piece of paper: July 4 weekend from years ago .Covering ICU/CCU. Sign out from Dr. Jeffrey L., on patients to be seen:
Bed one. Acute myocardial infarction, day #1, stable.
Bed two. Unstable angina, on nitroglycerin, beta blocker, heart rate forty-seven.
Bed three. CVA (stroke).
Bed four. Bilateral pneumonia, aspiration, continue antibiotics, check x-rays, watch oxygen saturation.
Bed five. COPD/asthma- coughing, wheezing, short of breath. On nebulizers, steroids, oxygen.
There are a few more patients on Jeff’s list. He is a superb cardiologist, caring, thorough and well liked and we cross cover each other eagerly and joyfully.
I pick out a note book from the box, a book of recipes, handwritten by the Mrs. and on the last page notice a side by side ,precise analysis of two properties we have seen, as we look to buy our first home and recall she had done exactly the same, on a legal pad, as we chose between career choices in Boston and Providence, at the end of my training and wonder how I might fare if subjected to such a review-’tends to be messy.’
Photo: The Mrs. Analyzes.
Note: Disadvantage- Electric heat, no cellar
Photo: Rhode Island Medical Society Presidential medallion
I look at the bookshelves and am pleased to see Pico Iyer still there, and all the V.S. Naipaul’s too have survived the cut and are not in the donate to library pile.
I leaf through Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells.
Iyer’s Japanese wife notes, “Your book, nothing happening?” “Not exactly nothing,” he replies. “It’s in the spaces where nothing is happening that one has to make a life.
I take the entire box, the certificates, diplomas, degrees, newspaper columns I have written and empty it into the recycling bin.
One of many hundred Ask The Doctor Columns. The Woonsocket Call
Photo: Letras de mi padre
Photo: Recycle and Move on!
Meticulous record keeping. House cleaning to precede imminent marriage in the family .. lots of fine details. Enjoyed reading fine observations. Good writing.
Loved this