my birthday...and my truth, my catharsis

> 10am. Birthday breakfast at the ice cream cafe around the block - coffee, almond croissant, and The Portable Atheist, edited by Christopher Hitchens.

Happy Birthday, alien.

I would have preferred to make a kooky audio blog on my birthday but, as events have turned out, as life as we know it made things turn out, I don't think an initially kooky audio blog ending with the sound of me breaking down and sobbing would have worked.

A few days ago I came clean to N. I could not, will not, submit her to any more snaps, bouts of anger, and avoidance on my part. I love her far, far too much to stupidly yell at her with undeserved anger and frustration. So I sat her down, and told her my story. I brought my brown paper bag full of medicines to the table and showed her each one, saving the two most critical prescriptions for last. "This one," I told her as I held up a vial full of large long white oval pills, "is an antibiotic that helps prevent me from getting pneumonia. This one helps me from catching nasty fungal stuff." Then I held up a container of small pale yellow round pills. "This is for hypertension, like what you have. It keeps my blood pressure under control."

Finally I held up the last two clear brown plastic containers and said, "Now, these two pills are called anti-retrovirals. What they do is prevent a certain kind of virus inside me from replicating. If I stop taking these pills the virus will develop resistance to them and in time the pills will be useless and the virus will reproduce like crazy, kill off all my antibodies.....and I'll die. That virus is called HIV. And I've had it for over 11 years. I'm sorry, N. I'm so sorry."

She sat there nodding, trying to understand. I knew that she knew about AIDS and how nasty it is and how millions and millions have died from it. She seemed a mite stoic at that moment, her profoundly sweet and humble old lady face nodding at the clinical and medical facts I was spouting. But I also sensed that......the very loving, very mortally loving and vulnerable mother in her was crumbling and buckling for me, because of me, her youngest son.

I had broken her heart. I had held back over 11 years' worth of truth, lived 11 years' worth of lies. I kept it from her out of utter fear and out of shame.

Deep inside I knew it was probably just a matter of time before it had to - before it must - surface. She was the last person I wanted to tell. She had been through so much already all these years, worries way, way, waaaay too much for her kids and grandkids, watched her deeply beloved husband, my dad, die after 54 years of a beautiful partnership. The last thing I wanted was to hurt her, and....well, this.

And she still loves me, worries for me. She didn't turn away, didn't push me away as I most gravely feared would happen. And it brought to my mind this piece of art I made years back, a simple picture I took, with words I wrote superimposed on it.

Happy Birthday, alien. Happy bitter yet cathartic truths.

this little tree survives

< Outside my window just before 7 in the morning, with neighbourhood cyclists getting their workout at this time every single day, and the cafe about to open. It will be another hour or so before the sun breaks and the refreshing smell of dew and mist evaporate.

It's now 7am as I type, the beautiful Tanita Tikaram's Cathedral Song is playing (most perfect to start the day with, mellow yet rather awakening), the dewy smell of a southern California morning mingling with the sharp aroma of Japanese sandalwood incense I lit a little earlier.

I've been awake since about 5 but stayed in bed til the desire for breakfast prompted me. These past few months since I was laid off from my job at the museum shop have been both lazy and unproductive and carefree, but at the same time intensely frustrating both physically and mentally because of the acute stomach infection and my losing a great deal of weight as consequence.

I originally wanted to keep an active summer. I wanted to take yoga class. I wanted to do day trips to Santa Monica and Venice and Long Beach at least once a week, stroll along the ocean views, plant myself at a cafe and write for a few hours while sipping iced coffees or Italian sodas. I wanted to rush downtown to Union Station in the morning to catch train rides to the mountains, to the little northern California towns, to see Santa Barbara, or south to San Diego and still make it back home to South Pasadena in time for dinner.

Didn't happen. Or at least, the plans were postponed for now. I did make it to Santa Monica last week but couldn't stay more than a few hours because I tired very quickly. Some small accomplishment.

Doctor still doesn't know exactly what's wrong with me because the test results take about 6 weeks and we're still waiting. Meanwhile all I can do is constantly eat (my appetite has never been more greedy) and go to the bathroom a lot. I hope whatever it is is very treatable. I miss all the weight I've lost. I miss being able to do many things with energy.

I'm optimistic. I keep my sense of humour through this, even though most of my family don't seem to understand. I feel as if they'd rather avoid thinking about me being ill. I know they know I'm ill and yet I haven't really heard anything from them about it, with the exception, of course, of N., K., and to some extent D.

I'm pretty much on my own, then, emotionally and mentally. I've survived before, quietly and unobtrusively, on my own and that's why I'm optimistic. I look forward to a trip I have yet to plan, to stroll through the misty forest of the Sequoia National Park, where I just know it feels primeval and comfortingly haunted somehow.

Those massive, ancient trees, I know, can understand me. They've quietly survived, too.