Dear PD friends---we were moved and stimulated by David Boots' posts in
which he deliberately invoked our feelings, and recognized that sharing
these is perhaps often as therapeutic as discussing Sinemet dosages. :-)
We are , of course, feeling beings, as well as collectors of facts. Our
industrious fact collecter, Wendy Tebay, who digd up all that important
info on toxins and pollution ALSO shared with us poems she had written
about how she FELT about these matters. One of the ways that I, as care-
partner for Peter, deal with my feelings is also to write poetry (another
is _dreaming_ and realizisg that many things about our life with PD are
relegated to an unconscious level, so that we can keep functioning, and come
out in our dreams.) This is all prelude to some minor risk-taking, and a wish
to share with you two poems I've written that may possibly also "speak to
your condition":
LIFE ON THE EDGE
With eyes closed,
I see us----
standing on cliff-edge,
clinging together.
(Not yet in free-fall, but so close at times
I almost sense the terror that would bring---
earth giving way beneath us,
rush of air,
impact of loss---)
Today we step back
and are saved.
Tomorrow?
CHF, 5/18/95
LOSSES
Given a choice, I would hold fast to you--
would stop the slow erosion of our lives.
It isn't fair, that we who've loved so long
should be the losers, even though we love.
We are not what we were, nor will we be
the travelers of our dreams, and journey far.
We try to hold the edges of our lives
and yet they slip away, out of our grasp,
Like sands the waves consume along the shore.
The edges crumble, but the center holds---
you are still you, and I am still myself.
That will not change. The loving will endure,
through illness, age, and death (the final loss).
I cling to what we have, and push away
the thought of how, by inches, as I watch
you seem somehow diminished, letting go
of little daily things you cannot hold.
We walk this path together, after all,
and if you stumble, I will take your hand
and if I tremble, you will hold me tight.
All is not lost to the approaching night.
CHF 12/16/94
Friends, how do YOU cope?
Camilla Flintermann, Oxford,OH
