Coping

What to do when things do not go according to plan? It is as good a question as any other with as many answers as there are questioners. I do not have much to cope with. For this I am grateful, yet there are a few exasperating things. 

Today I read an article in the NYT concerning the “moral injury” of health care workers, especially doctors. I was one of those once. I did not know there was a name for it other than burnout. I learned to deal with duplicitous administrators and insurance companies. Though caught off guard, I eventually learned to deal with the ever increasing mix of newly minted medication addicts so adroitly created by big pharma. 

 

None of this was easy. I swallowed several generations of anti-ulcer drugs and was glad to have them. If you can remember when the country was not constantly thrown into one fake crisis after another, the by-word was change. Change is what I came to expect. When I first began to practice medicine something substantial changed every 6 months. Then that was halved to 3, then monthly, then I don’t know what. I just hung on for the ride.

 

Like those odd relational questions on the SAT, coping is to change as change is to coping. My mother, in her eighties, decided she did not want to contend with change any more. She was through coping. Though active and mentally sharp until her nineties, she would profess to all her wish to be taken into the great unknown, heaven in her case. This was a downer at our family’s holiday gatherings. She could not be dissuaded.

 

Charlotte and I arrived in Maine in early June. There were two outstanding projects, both of which I had consulted with the boatyard for over a year. There are many projects in the yard. It seems that five new boats are being build. Then there are always a few major refits taking place. Boats must be stored and then un-stored. They need to be prepared for the winter and commissioned for the summer. It is the cycle of a boatyard’s life.

 

Somehow Carrie Rose must fit into the boatyard’s schedule. I wish I could tell you I knew how to do this efficiently. There is no formula. I have tried passive aggression, shouting and swearing, calm retroflection, and appealing to the hierarchy, all have in one way or another failed. I am at a loss and have decided that the only way to cope is through persistence. My hope is that they will decide a better option than seeing me each day is to finish my projects and send me on my way.

 

A valuable lesson that primary care taught me was that logic is not an effective problem solving strategy. To provide logical solutions made me feel better but seldom helped the patient. People are mostly polite, listen carefully as I prattle on, nodding in agreement, and then do none of it. Sobering is all I can say. It taught me to listen to what they are saying and not listen to myself. 

 

So, what have I learned? If the boatyard is doing other things, my thingamajig will have to wait. And if done in duress (aka holding feet to the fire) best to check the project is completed before steaming off into the sunset. In the past I did most things myself. Now after my seventieth birthday, I’ve decided to delegate work and thus must suffer the consequences.                     

Chainsaw

I like many self proclaimed handymen have a multitude of power tools but a chainsaw is not in my repertoire. My home is located on a small patch of land in a Chicago neighborhood called Arcadia Terrace. It was named for the developers, Arcadia Builders. It is what we now call a subdivision, started in the early 20^th century on land that was once wetlands and orchards.

 

Our reddish brown brick bungalow was built in 1913. It resides on a block of single family homes similar to ours. There is a smaller wooden copy to the south and a larger cream colored ornate brick structure to the north. This is to say that though the neighborhood is lined with trees, and we have a 45 foot blue spruce in the backyard and an elm in the front, I hardly need a chainsaw.

 

It has been our practice to cruise Carrie Rose, a Nordic Tug 32, for three months in the summer. She has sailed many places from Michigan to Maine. For the last eight years she has resided 1300 miles away from home on Herrick Bay near the tiny town of Brooklin, Maine. 

 

When transiting either way we try to visit with friends. Maryland, Virginia, Vermont, Maine, Michigan and New York have all gotten a visit. One friend, who Charlotte has known since her early twenties, lives on a Michigan farm road 150 miles from our home. We drop in to pester her for a few days most spring and fall. Her homestead is comprised of a few acres, mostly forest and fallow fields. The remaining is a lovely backyard garden. Its perimeter is lined with pine trees and therein lies the rub. 

 

The grassy green yard is patrolled by a fluffy well mannered white dog that has the remarkable trait of stalking, leopard like, any furry creature that dares to enter his realm. He keeps the squirrels up in the trees and limits the rabbit population through an effective infanticide program. The trees that the squirrels occupy have what is known as needle drop. The inner needles of the lower branches die off first leaving a gnarly mass of grey limbs. 

 

In such a bucolic environment this is unsightly. Add to that a decrepit octagonal picnic table that begged to be dispatched and suddenly a chainsaw made sense. I thought a Sawzall would do the trick but I was mistaken. Our friend took out her new acquisition. It is about a foot and one half long with eight inches of it being a devastating chainsaw blade. There is a 20V battery attached to the end of the handle and an inadequate safety cover over the rotation blade. 

 

She demonstrated its lethality and set me free. The first thing to go was the picnic table. I was careful not to hit any of the nails or bolts. At first I tried to cut deep into the wood, the blade jammed repeatedly. I like to think I am a quick learner, so I took shallower cuts and the table collapsed. The thirty year old pressure treated wood made for an epic bonfire. 

 

Though sore from the day before, the chainsaw beckoned. It was time to trim the tree limbs. I put on the protective gloves. Made sure there was enough chain oil and that the spare battery was charged. The first tree I attacked attacked back. I needed a strategy. Slowly I made a path through a narrow section of limbs until I reached the trunk. Then there was no stopping me. I cut each limb close to the trunk and as high as I could reach.

 

In the process I got a bit too aggressive and was politely chastened. Three or four trees later with muscles aching, a sweat stained shirt, and scared upper and lower limbs, I gave in. The battery still held a charge, the blade was still sharp and I still had all my limbs. Now that was a fun and productive afternoon.

 

Throughout the process, in the back of my mind, I tried to convince myself that my life would be better, more fulfilled, if I had one of these lilliputian chainsaws. But maybe, just maybe, with age come wisdom and so I demurred. Afterall, despite all the contrary evidence, life will go on without the latest power appliance. At least that is what I’d like to believe!