Guest column "Is there help for a stagnant MH system?" / Poem: Five Planets Aligned in the Western Sky

Today was indeed a "red white and blue day" as said in my poem: the publishing of my latest guest editorial in the Doylestown-PA-based Intelligencer. Click here.

Unfortunately in the online edition, they left out my byline and how to get in touch w/New Directions, my support group.

So when I emailed it to my E-list and also put it on Facebook I added those lines myself.

I attempted to leave a comment on my own article, to this effect, but the comment simply would not publish.

The kids and I met at Bonnet Lane for breakfast. I had my usual, poached eggs on toast, hashed browns w/Unions (in honor of the Fourth) with a side of fresh strawberries.

We're in a new seat in the smaller room with the counter. The place is always packed for breakfast. From her high chair, Grace, almost 11 months, is flinging her eggs, bagel, and strawberries, onto the carpet. With her LEFT hand.

A regular Sandy Koufax in skirts.



I'm aware that today is Publication Day and I've gotta get my hands on the actual paper, rather than just the Internet download.

Sitting at the counter, oh, about five feet away, a man is reading a newspaper. We've all finished eating, so I devote my full attention to Man and Paper.

Yes, it looks like he's reading the Intell instead of the Inquirer b/c of this characteristic thick dark line at the bottom of the page.

And, hey, here's a coincidence for you, I can tell he's reading the Opinion Page by the way the columns are set up.

I move in my seat to see if my Guest Column is there, which I'll know b/c there's a photo of me. More about Photo later.

Wow, I say to Dan and Nicole. The man's reading my article.

I get up from my seat, mosey on over, and say:

I wrote that article.

He looks up at me.

Did you read it, I ask.

No, he said, I just looked at the headline. But I'll read it now.

Well, I said, it's about mental health. If you're not interested in the subject, don't read it.

He insists on reading it. I say, If you have any questions, I'll be here for two more minutes.

We're getting ready to leave. I ask for a container to put my strawbs in.

Then the guy at the counter pats the empty seat next to him.

I go up and sit beside him.

"My girlfriend had bipolar d/o," he said. "She died in April of pneumonia. She was 47 years old."

He insists - and I believe him - that if she'd gotten decent care - she was in a Havertown hospital - that the hospital staff gave her inferior care b/c she had bipolar disorder and no health insurance, two very great stigmas in our society which hates people w/mental illness and hates low-income people who can't afford health insurance. (These are My People!)

Go Tea Party Go. Another reference to the Fourth.

I'm now back at the table gathering my gear, when I go back and sit with Michael.

Michael, have you ever talked to anyone about this? I ask.

Never, he said.

Please...come to our support group this Tuesday nite.

He won't write anything down. He'll never remember our website address with its two S's or even the name.

I can just picture Michael going home and goggling New Horizons or New Beginnings.

However, he will remember Abington Presbyterian Church just down the road.

Later on, when I saw him at the stop sign, I had him write it down.

He has never discussed the disgraceful treatment his GF of two years, a loving woman of 47 yrs old, mother of five messed-up kids; Michael was the best thing that ever happened to her.

I'm betting he'll be there. What dyou think?



After I left the Bonnet, with quarters, I bot The Intell outside. I was feeling very grown up (I'm 65.5) that I read the instrux correctly and presto, the box opened up.

Then I drove to Mom's to schmooze. I try to visit as often as I can. She'll be 89 next month.

I read the article out loud so I could see if Alan Kerr, my editor, changed anything. He did not. I always make it easy on the editors by carefully editing it. He's a consummate editor unlike most editors at Patch.com, who are in their twenties and quite green. I do write for Patch.



When you're an insulin-dependent diajetic like me (combo of diabetic and energetic) you make something called a Big Salad (their term).

Featured are steamed asparagus, brocc, carrots as well as fresh veggies like Arugula which mom and sister Ellen gave me.

As I start leaving, they wanna give me things. Mom has articles from the Cleveland Jewish News which are up in her room, and Ellen has run upstairs to find god-only-knows-what for me. "You're just like Mommy," I say. "If you find it, bring it out to my car."

When I got home, my sciatic pain was so bad I couldn't take it anymore.

Sitting down at my diabetes station, where I test my blood 3x a day and shoot up, I took my Percocet and that new pill Prometheus my surgeon prescribed.

Get all your work done, now, Ruthie, I said, with full knowledge that I'd probly get six hours of quality sleep this afternoon from the Prometheus.

At 7:30 pm, I'm snug under the covers, a fan blasting on me, when someone is squeezing my knee.

I jump!

Scott was glad to see I was still alive. He's a worrier. He said he came over two hours earlier and I was still asleep.

"And," he said, "you had your back door wide open." It's on the other side of the room.

"I know," I said. "I always leave it open."

"Yeah, but not while the air-conditioning is on. I closed it for you."

A small scene of domestic bliss for ya.

Oh, I selected the title of the Guest Column myself. The editor usually puts his own title on to fit in the allotted space, but I was hoping he'd use this mildly alarming one.

I'm not totally happy w/the word "stagnant" but couldn't think of anything else. Stagnant does convey dirty water, filled w/debris, so, yes, I do think that's a good visual image for our dreadful mental health system, esp. if you're poor.

In honesty, tho, some people get excellent care, poor or not. I always got great care since I'm on the high end of the "poor spectrum."


THE FIVE PLANETS ALIGNED IN THE WESTERN SKY

We were going to find the planets, Simon and I
Held fast for twenty-eight days
in the palm of the western sky.
What I knew of the West didn’t amount to much –
the place where the sun went down –
the home of the Californias,
the Rockies,
the cold Pacific.
I’d heard too about wetted-down plum rows in California
- watered by vast irrigation systems that never ran dry –
and the prickled oranges: green and swaying on the stem.

It was the dinner hour.
We took my car.
Raced along familiar streets,
itching to get there before the stars sank and left us behind.
We inched up hills… stood on the highest points in Montgomery County
...the new Korean church
...the high school my boy went to
...the baseball field streaming with lights.

We knew they were there, the planets. Somewhere there.
Simon put out his cigarette and we drove back home.
We parked in the drive and stepped across the hastas and early blooming tulips.
Stood and reckoned from the cold wet grass.

“Venus!” called Simon.
“Jupiter – Mars – Mercury – Saturn.”
He’d found them all.
Each in its place… snug… settled in the crack they’d fallen through back in eternity.
And Venus… floating in the hollow… beautiful as a cat… blinking…
on and off...
on and off.