Month: September 2018

Art's friend and sometime service provider Richard came out today with his backhoe to start work on digging the new driveway for the western parcel. This was the project that Arthur had initiated back in May when he was trying to survey the parcel's property line so as to get the new driveway place properly – at which time he had his accident.

So I guess finally we're catching up to where he wanted to be at the beginning of summer. But with less fish in the freezer and with the driveway work only starting, instead of being finished.

Here is Richard's backhoe, chomping at the shrubberies and trees.

We also saw a bear today, when we went on our afternoon walk. It wasn't that scary – the bear just crossed the road. We waited a bit and went on our way.

[daily log: walking, 4km]

We went out fishing this morning. Arthur caught one fish.

In the afternoon, I went up the hill on what's becoming my daily trompabout. I still can't find the stake marking the southwest corner of the lot. Searching and sliding… 

[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 150m]

I went out tromping on the hillside again this morning. You'd be surprised to learn it's possible to get lost within 200 feet of the road – the brush is so thick, and the hillside is so steep and irregular. Anyway, I found myself again. I have GPS on my phone – there's no real danger, I don't think – assuming I can avoid conking my head against a branch or something, as presumably happened to Arthur in his accident in May.

The day cleared up nicely, though. We will probably go fishing again tomorrow.

Here's a picture from up in the shrubberies. The camera made it sideways – which is often how I was looking at the world, up there, so I decided to leave it that way. It would be nice if my phone's camera was smarter about this – it's a lot of work using my computer to get the pictures oriented the right way, and for now, I'm too lazy to do it, because I can use the disorientation of my morning's experience as a justification for the mis-oriented picture. Right?

[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 150m]

Arthur found a rainbow. He wanted to clean his boat, so he got it out of the water. I let him do his thing, although of course I watched and worried. I think it's important for him to not feel micromanaged.

I spent most of the day sorting some boxes. It will be a long project.

[daily log: walking, 1.5km]

Just in case I was running out of books, someone generously mailed some books to me from Korea.

Oh, wait. That was me. They took a while to cross the Pacific in a boat. Yay! More books.

In other news, Arthur and I made a truce. I gave him a kind of ultimatum: I've committed to not stopping him from doing stupid stuff, in exchange for him not hiding the fact that he's doing stupid stuff. I figure it's a sort of compromise, and hopefully if he's committed to telling me about it, he might think about it more, too.

Such as it is. We went out looking fish this morning, but none were interested in joining us on the boat.

We went into town to go shopping (Thursday is seniors' day at the market). That's when I got my boxes.

[daily log: walking, 2km]

So today was a hard day. It started with heavy rain, which perhaps annoyed Art because he'd ideated going fishing again. When the rain cleared in the afternoon, we took a walk down to the bridge (which we're trying to do everyday).

But then he insisted on going out this afternoon to try to finish the survey project that was what he'd been working on when he hurt his head in May. I happily went with him, figuring that it needed to be done. I'd try to make sure it went safely. Mostly tromping through the brush, climbing steep slopes strewn with ancient slash… that kind of thing.

We managed it. We measured between the waterline and the road, and we got the half way point flagged, so Richard can know where to put the new driveway through. I suppose during this "surveying project" I felt some apprehension, or anxiety – after all, this is where he'd fallen before. And the trail is pretty damn precarious, even for me, with my somewhat more agile body. Lots of slippery logs, holes through rotting material, broken branches sticking.

We get out of the trail up at the road, and I felt relieved. I said, as some offhand remark, "Well, now you've retraced your steps."

Just as offhandedly, Arthur said, "Oh, well, I already went down there myself the other day."

I felt suddenly sick to my stomach. And on the verge of tears, swallowed down because there would be no point in such an emotional outburst, would there? No doubt, he'd done his little walk during one of those times when I was unloading the trailer and he'd said he was going to take a walk on the road.

I guess, now, I feel really pissed off.

Why am I even bothering to try to keep track of him? He's going to do what he wants, anyway. I'm not going to monitor him 24/7.

And I've got these concerns, moving forward. He's made a commitment to tell me when he's going to do something risky. But his risk assessment ability is so clearly broken.

I know he's been contemplating taking the chainsaw and clearing brush in anticipation of Richard coming some day soon. I've said, several times, that I'll happily help him… but how can I prevent him from deciding to do it on his own? Or any other of the many dangerous things he might choose to undertake on his own… Do I need to hide or disable the chainsaw? I don't want to treat him like a child. An obstreperous child.

Some pictures follow – mostly of the path he'd cleared before the accident, that we measured along, today. They're in order from the road (top of hill) to water (bottom of hill). You can see the little pink flags he tied – most of those flags were tied already – he'd done them before his accident. Or who knows – maybe he stumbled around, bloody and brain damaged, and completed his project after his injury.

A lonesome blueberry.

[daily log: walking, 5km]

Finally, there was a non-rainy day that could make it possible for Arthur to fulfill his long-felt destiny: going fishing.

We got in the boat, and got ready. It's an odd experience – I am relying on him for his expertise and knowledge on this undertaking, because I know nothing about it. He has to be the safety officer, yet there are concerns over how well he can plan for and anticipate problems, in the wake of his brain injury. So I have to be very alert, yet not do much. Just watching and hoping he knows what the hell he's doing. 

In fact, there was one aspect where his planning was a bit poor. He didn't check out the engines, etc., very well. And there was a problem: one of the two batteries (there's a backup) was completely dead, and not recharging on the engine. This, of course, was a bit worrying. More worrying was when we parked in the middle of the inlet, with the engines shut off, while he attempted to diagnose the problem. What if both batteries ended up dead? I pondered.

In the end, luck was with us, and we restarted the engine on one battery, and drove out to his fishing spot. And we got one fish. Just one. But for a short time, Arthur seemed genuinely happy.

[daily log: walking, 3km; boating, 20km]

I have a lot of stuff, there's no denying that – now that it's put all together, and nothing is in storage any more. 90% of it is cellulose, meaning, obviously books, but also a vast packrattery of files and a smattering of wooden furniture. So I have dubbed it "my kingdom of (mostly) cellulose."

As I was moving the last of my book boxes (there are still many other non-book boxes to be moved) up to the attic, I had a sort of epiphany about Arthur and "stuff."

Arthur does not, in fact, perceive his house full of stuff as being "his" stuff. Rather, in his own mind, I think he believes that he has built and now maintains and staffs a kind of hotel for his extended family and friends. Thus he can self-honestly claim that he has almost no possessions, all while keeping his vast, well-apportioned "Rockpit Estate." 95% of what's in the house and on the property is not his, but rather, the "house's."

Because of this, he can't in fact relate – at all! – to my rather baroque collection of personal effects: knickknacks, mementoes, files, old gadgets, books… he sees the whole mass of it as excessive and unnecessary, because it is so clearly "mine" – unlike his collection, which is maintained "for other people," and which he simply makes use of, as the proprietor and sole staff member of his "hotel."

On the one hand, this is a great reflection of his core generosity of spirit. On the other hand, it means he lacks empathy, in the extreme, for my state of mind and my needs.

Everything up to this point has nothing to do with his recent traumatic brain injury. It's an aspect of his personality which has always been in play. What's changed is that he is now much less tolerant of deviations from what he expects, and he is frustrated and confused by the inaccessibility of other people's states of mind instead of seeming merely benignly uninterested, as has been his baseline behavior.

Thus he seems utterly bewildered by my desire to keep these things of mine, and by my interest in being surrounded by them. For me, having this kind of "nest" populated by my things is essential to me maintaining my sense of self. All the years in Korea, I was separated from a great portion of it, yet I was constantly adding to the collection, and defining my personal space by the objects that filled it. I could certainly survive that way. But I'm not ready to let go of all the things I'd set aside when I went to Korea – they always occupied not just the storage unit in Minnesota, but a substantial back room in my core identity. I don't know how to solve it.

I hope as he recovers, he can at least return to his benign ignorance of my otherness, instead of seeming to feel threatened by it. But meanwhile, we're having a bit of a struggle. Of course, I expected some aspects of settling in together would end up a struggle. But I didn't realize, I guess, that it would take this form.

[daily log: walking, 3km; boxes, ∞/4]