February 27: Small Yellow Fish, Moving Day, Echoes

Ford Prefect just instructed Arthur Dent to put a fish in his ear . . .

Ford was holding up a small glass jar which quite clearly had a small yellow fish wriggling around in it.  Arthur blinked at him.  He wished there was something simple and recognizable he could grasp hold of.  He would have felt safe if alongside the Dentrassis' underwear, the piles of Sqornshellous mattresses and the man from Betelgeuse holding up a small yellow fish and offering to put it in his ear he had been able to see just a small packet of cornflakes.  But he couldn't, and he didn't feel safe.

Suddenly a violent noise leaped at them from no source that he could identify.  He gasped in terror at what sounded like a man trying to gargle while fighting off a pack of wolves.

"Shush!" said Ford.  "Listen, it might be important."

"Im . . . important?"

"It's the Vogon captain making an announcement on the tannoy."

"You mean that's how Vogons talk?"

"Listen!"

"But I can't speak Vogon!"

"You don't need to.  Just put this fish in your ear."

Ford, with a lightning movement, clapped his hand to Arthur's ear, and he had the sudden sickening sensation of the fish slithering deep into his aural tract.  Gasping with horror he scrabbled at his ear for a second or so, but then slowly turned goggle-eyed with wonder.  He was experiencing the aural equivalent of looking at a picture of two black silhouetted faces and suddenly seeing it as a picture of a white candlestick.  Or of looking at a lot of colored dots on a piece of paper which suddenly resolve themselves into the figure six and mean that your optician is going to charge you a lot of money for a new pair of glasses.

He was still listening to the howling gargles, he knew that, only now it had somehow taken on the semblance of perfectly straightforward English.

This is what he heard . . .

I haven't experienced a whole lot of yellow fish moments like Arthur does here.  Moments where something out-of-focus becomes clear.  Confusion becomes meaning.  The process for me is more complicated and involves struggle, breakthroughs, more struggle, and then surrender.  Like taking a class in philosophy or calculus.

Today was moving day at the medical office.  The moving guys showed up around 8 a.m., and everything began to disappear.  Desks, beds, equipment, toilet paper, dishwasher detergent.  Over twenty years' worth of stuff.  I sort of walked around, taped boxes, labeled boxes, took pictures, said goodbye.  Like I said, over two decades worth of living.

As the morning wore on, I noticed it becoming more and more difficult for me to laugh or joke or even have a conversation.  By the time I left, I was practically nonverbal.  Still not feeling very friendly.  I sat for most of the afternoon in my new "office," surrounded by boxes and more boxes.  I'm sure anyone walking by the door thought I was some kind of homeless Mr. Rogers, looking for some new neighbors.  If only I had worn my cardigan.

As you can tell by the pictures, the old medical office is looking pretty empty.  By tomorrow, everything will be gone, and all that will be left is echoes.  Tomorrow morning, I will show up there at my normal time, take one final walk through the place.  Look at the pinholes in the wall where I hung up Christmas and Halloween decorations.  Gaze at empty bulletin boards, where the outlines of old announcements are still visible in the cork.  Stand in my sister's office, and try to hear her voice there one more time--the ghost of a laugh, whisper of a name.  Sound my barbaric yawp in the empty operating room, just to hear it bounce off the walls and down the hallway.  Remember and celebrate.

One special memory:  My wife and son had just been released from the hospital after my son's birth.  We stopped by the medical office to see my sister and introduce her new nephew.  We walked through the door with the bassinet.  My sister swooped in, grabbed my son, and we didn't see him for over an hour.  She held him, talked to him, changed his diaper, fed him.  Glowing.  She was glowing.

Saint Marty is trying to let go.  Really, he is.