E-zine 1
May 2005

Soul Foraging:
Searching for self

S
unday morning sounds changed with each stride Jessica took along the path—children’s squeals, church hymns, a dog’s bark, a sharp word spoken too loud. Fresh salt air brushed her cheeks and a slight breeze blew hair from her face. The sun sat at an angle in the east. At this hour on Sundays, doors opened to pajama clad Daddies holding their sleepy, unwashed children. Sunday papers lay in gardens, at doorways or stuffed in the mailbox, the paper rolled in Gladwrap like a souvlaki. It would take half of Sunday to unwrap the damn thing and half the time the news wouldn’t be worth the effort.

But husband Gordon liked his Sunday paper. He liked to sit on the porch with his morning coffee, undisturbed. It was impossible to disturb him anyway. The kids gave up bothering him in their teens. They’d scream, ‘Where’s Dad?’ sighing when they saw he was already settled on the porch and turn to her for whatever they needed. Once she’d tried sitting with the paper on the porch.

"Mum! Mum what do you think you’re doing? I need to go to Susan’s this morning. I told you. Mum!" her daughter had said. The paper was pulled from her hands and an angry teenage daughter frowned and stamped her foot.

Nearing the beach, Jessica heard the ocean roar and the waves crash against themselves. People populated little spots between the flags. Young women lay with naked breasts pointing skywards, tanned, lean and lovely. A woman as old as Methuselah, her skin hanging from her skeleton—bronzed tissue-paper in need of a good iron with two large nipples about midway, sat reading with only a sun-visor for protection. A child’s peach bottom contrasted about arms-length away. Jessica wanted to sit between them. A middle-aged woman, Jessica wore a swimming suit with cardigan style sun-coverall, a sarong, her large rimmed hat and sunglasses. She sat on her towel knees bent so she could lean on them.

She hadn’t slept well again, waking in the night, stinking hot. Little fires had erupted under her skin. She imagined a red earth splattered with campfires and a nomadic people taking up residence, staying a while before extinguishing their fires and moving on. Last night she’d thrown back the covers, her nightie forming a wet second skin like the skim on cold coffee dregs. She’d jumped up, raced to the window, lifted the sash and let the cool night air fan her. Peeling her nightie up over her hips and breasts made her skin tingle so it felt like spit looks on hot bitumen.

A bellow disturbed her peace. Her hands loosened their grip. The wet nightie clammy and unpleasant fell against her belly. "Close the bloody window! Are you insane, woman?"

Jessica looked toward the lump, Gordon, under the covers who had slept next to her for twenty-five years. "I was hot," she said, slipping out of her nightgown and opening the dresser to get another.

"How’s a man to sleep?" came the moan from the lump. Never mind the snorting, jerking, guttural snores that came from him most nights, causing her to wake and stay awake, waiting through the rounds. Urgh, snoggle, snuffle, argh, argh, pause. The pause caused the worry. Was he dead? Would he breathe again? Was he breathing but no longer snoring? Should she approach to check? Leaning over being careful not to disturb him in case he woke, she’d….

"Arghhhh…" the lump flat on his back, resounded.

He’s alive. Reassured she’d flop back to her side, covering her ears with her pillow.

Now on the beach, tears threatened. She felt unloved, unneeded. Her two children were adults, making their own lives with their own mistakes. Her son was a plane trip away and her daughter dropped in and ran out on her way somewhere else. Her husband used a new language with her, grunting primitive replies. He didn’t know the highlight of her week, last week, was when the chemist had told her she had pretty blue eyes or that she fantasized about the African gentleman who borrowed books at the same time every week from their local library. Her fantasy was nipped in the bud last week when he turned up with two small children and a lovely young wife in tow.

Gordon didn’t know she sat in their garden most mornings and cried into her roses and just as quickly recovered feeling exuberant with energy to tackle the next challenge. The other day she tackled the trades over his office renovations—assured and confident. She left the work in progress, driving across town to make a delivery for him, but took a wrong turn, got lost and had to pull over to the side of the road and weep. Gordon hadn’t even noticed she was putting on weight. Her belly protruded where it was once flat. Eyeing herself side on in the mirror was distressing. She puffed up a whole clothing size, her breasts full and round and later in her cycle slimmed down to her more svelte self. Gordon was fat. His hair thinning, his bum sagged. He didn’t mind. He was still Gordon the businessman, husband and father. The kids still needed him, even if it was to sort out their finances.

She took a deep breath of salt air, enjoying the stale seaweed odors. Her toes dug in the sand. She took off her hat and secured it under her towel. The sun burned down on her head, but she knew that was about to be dulled by the dark cloud moving its way over the sky to cover the warmth and threaten rain. Her head ached. A sharp pain struck behind her eye. She fell forward. She lay face down in the wet sand and listened to her heart pound. Her legs splayed to one side at odds with the rest of her body but she couldn’t move. The rain showered down, cold, stinging. Her body shook violently, so violently she lifted from it and walked around the scene looking back at her frail self with disinterest. She watched a sunbather run to her, shouting to his wife.

"Help, help. Quick she has fallen."

"How did this happen. She’s having some kind of fit. We shouldn’t move her. You get help."

Jessica watched the paramedics arrive to help them drag the wet Jessica onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. They were all in a panic. She followed. They wrapped her body in a thermal something. Jessica was amused. Was she dying?

A slap from the inside, like a bad landing whacked through Jessica’s body and she felt cold. Hands with rough towels seemed to be rubbing at her and clothing was peeled from her limbs. A blanket was wrapped around her.

Jessica stared, still unable to move. Her left arm was numb. The side of her face felt strange and she couldn’t swallow her dribble. She heard grumbling sounds in place of the words she formed in her head.

"Don’t try and speak. You’re okay. We’ll get you to the hospital."

Jessica was out of her body again, looking at the hurt Jessica on the stretcher riding in an ambulance. A tube was shoved down her throat. They were efficient and quick. Intravenous fluid ran into her arm, artificial breathing was in place. Even the dribble was wiped from the corner of her mouth. Hospital smells mingled with sand and sea.

No one smoke, Jessica joked but they didn’t pay any attention. Can’t hear me, hey? she asked. They couldn’t. She looked a mess. Her colour was pale. Her mouth drooped. Her body lay still like a beached whale.

I’ve had a stroke, she told herself. Well I’m not dead and I haven’t seen any white light, tunnel or dead relatives come to get me. What now?

She was back in her body. Two strong orderlies lifted her from the ambulance. She couldn’t help them but began to fight, trying to cough the tube out of her throat. Someone asked her to relax. She heard the word seizure. Her body flopped about cooperating with being pulled this way and that. What more could they ask of her? The tube was removed from her throat. She swallowed razor blades of dribble.

"Jessica?" Someone called her name and her eyes went in that direction. She tried to respond, but the words she formed left her mouth in foreign syllables. It reminded her of Gordon talking in his sleep. Gordon and the kids, had someone told them? She might die. They needed to be with her to say good-bye.

"You’ll be okay. The results suggest no permanent damage. Don’t worry we expect your speech to return, shortly. Physio will fix the paralysis in your arm. Only temporary." The nurse smiled down at Jessica. The young woman’s perfume smelt familiar.

What was that? Samsara? Chanel? She wanted to ask her, but instead watched while the nurse fiddles with the intravenous tube. Unable to make small talk, Jessica realised she was temporarily locked in her body. Isolated from her outside world, yet she felt peaceful.

Gordon appeared in the doorway, his face ashen. "You gave me such a scare."

Sorry I should have been more thoughtful, she wanted to say.

Her daughter Hilary followed behind her father. "Mum! What have you done to yourself?" She smothered Jessica’s face in kisses.

Jessica was content to inhale her daughter’s clean fragrances, especially her hair. How she loved the scent of Hilary’s hair. "Oh Mum, Mum I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you"

Sorry, I’ll try to be more careful, she thought.

Gordon moved Hilary aside and kissed Jessica’s forehead. He was clean-shaven, smooth.

"We love you." The two of them stood helpless at the bedside. Jessica felt for them. She tried to tell them not to worry but it came out gibberish. The look of horror on their faces made her want to laugh. She’d be okay in a few days the doctor had told her. But she couldn’t reassure them. Her voice was cocooned. It was almost as good as being out of her body—an observer rather than the participant. They’d have to manage.

Over the next few days, they were very attentive. Her son flew in from interstate and fussed over her. Flowers, gifts, joyful chatter.

"Don’t try to answer, Mum, I’ve got heaps to tell you. We won our match, Saturday…" Jessica enjoyed every minute. Days turned into weeks at home and her family continued their care.

Gordon took time off work. "We should have done more of this, sooner," he’d say, referring to having tea and cake in the afternoon. Hilary cut down her social engagements. Her son returned to the university, but called everyday. Jessica uttered a few sounds down the phone, loving her son’s encouragement if she made an intelligible word.

She attended the doctor’s appointments with Gordon but preferred to leave him in the waiting room. Always leaving the Medical center cheerfully, winking at Gordon and linking his arm on the way out.

Week four and the doctor was puzzled. He called her into his office. "I’ve had a puzzling conversation with your husband, Jessica."

He’d spoken to Gordon. Jessica crossed and uncrossed her legs. She ran her hand over her mouth and left it on the side of her face.

"Yes, umm," the doctor raised his eyebrows, "Gordon wanted to know why there was a lack of speech therapy in your recovery program." He looked at Jessica, but she slumped in her chair, her eyes looking at the floor, the scene reminiscent of numerous visits to the head mistress’s office in her youth. No words formed in her head.

"Jessica, why would he ask me this, when your speech returned within the first twenty-four hours?"