The elements . . . not just for survival anymore . . .

Let’s face it, no question that we’re deeply dependent on the elements of nature. If I ever had any doubts, this summer has been full of wonderfully explicit reminders. The fiery heat of this record-breaking high temperature streak is scorching the land, making the state as water-starved as it’s ever been and turning the very air into an enemy (friend Patrick perfectly described standing in the wind here these days as being “like I’m standing inside of a giant hair dryer“). Even the water that still exists around here is overheated: fish are being cooked in the lakes. Parched crops are dying and threatening to starve the livestock, which in turn are being sold off before they too die off, and that means whole farms and ranches crossed off forever. At the same time, in other parts of the world, flood and typhoon and hurricane–a surfeit of the water my region is desperate to drink–are equally fierce in toppling crops and towns and livelihoods. These wet winds blow with the same violence that stirs up the dust of our baked clay ground and desiccated, blasted trees’ branches, but when loaded with water their fury takes on drowning power along with the walloping wall of pressure that forces the world into what we would like to think are unnatural contortions–but of course are sent directly by nature.

The elements are also high in my consciousness when I’ve been seeing my partner through a series of outpatient procedures, the latest and most significant of them (nasal surgery) intended to greatly improve his ability to breathe. Let me just tell you that nothing on this bejeweled and stupendous planet will compel me now to steer my current search for vocation (a job will do, but a vocation would be SO far preferable!) in a medical direction! I always knew I was not a natural-born caregiver, being much too self-absorbed to devote my all to looking out for the best interests of another properly. I knew I was, to put it kindly, timid in the face of danger and not especially tough, unless you might be referring to the calluses on my drawing hand. But I also rediscovered my squeamish side, finding that seeing my beloved in the least discomfort, let alone wan and semi-anesthetized and speckled with his own blood, renders me just this side of paralyzed and struggling for equilibrium and air just about equally with his own distress. Not a huge help. Luckily for us both, his medical teams throughout the summer have been truly outstanding and the procedures have all gone as nearly perfectly as one could wish, or we might both have been marooned.

The latter surgery itself was a fresh reminder of the centrality of air in our lives. My spouse, being a singer and conductor and teacher, has always been very pneumo-centric in the peculiar way of such creatures, and has also long had nasal breathing impairment that made a good night’s sleep an unattainable grail. Despite this, it wasn’t until we decided to further investigate the possibility of some of his seemingly mild allergies being better treated that his ENT discovered a whole world of underlying trouble with a CT scan and a little nostril-gazing. A drastically deviated septum, bone spurs on his internasal structures, and a whole “secret room” closed chamber taking up space on one side to further block air passage–it all makes me curious how he managed all of these years on such inadequate resources.

It’s a little like when I finally got the treatment that brought me off the brink of disaster when that infamous foe of a chemical imbalance in the brain couldn’t be corrected with talk therapy and a better physical health and earnest intentions for self-improvement. The minute my meds really started kicking in I began to realize not only that I was capable of being my whole self, but that I could do so without enormous impediments it’d never occurred to me other people didn’t have, let alone that I didn’t have to have them. What a pleasant shock. I am hopeful that once he’s fully recovered my guy too will find a perfectly astonishing improvement not only in his breathing (his surgeon says he wouldn’t be surprised by an 80-90% improvement) but in all of the aspects of life directly influenced by it. There’s no question that being far more fully oxygenated will drastically change his life experience, and I can only expect that that will be for the better.

Now, of course, the post-op life is full of struggling for enough hydration to counter the dry breathing (particularly through the humidifier-free night) constricted by swollen sutured tissues and following the effects of anesthetic, meds and stress. Ay! It’s conscientiously working on deep breathing techniques to counter the post-op blockage. It’s being careful to gently spray rather abused tissues with plentiful healing saline but conversely not to let bath, shower or shampoo water get, literally, ‘up in his face’.

What’s ahead, no knowing. Only that we will continue to learn our respect for the elements both when they attack us in excess amounts and when we long for them in their absence. For now, I will join in the communal rain dance and add to it my own arabesques for more air. Just be glad I’m doing any of my dancing in the metaphorical or perhaps metaphysical sense and you don’t have to watch me perform it, or there would undoubtedly be a surfeit among my readership of another kind of saline. Whether you cry from horror or from laughing yourself to tears is up to you.