Hope and peace

I had my evoked potentials testing yesterday in Houston (or, as we down folk here in Texas like to say, "H-town"). I likely won't know the results for at least a week, and either way--negative = no information/positive = diagnosis--I probably won't post about them because I'll need to process that for awhile.

The neurophys tech and I spent about 3 hours together. You can really get to know a person in three hours, especially when they're sticking electrodes all over you and applying repeat shocks to one of your major nerves. I do this wherever I go--hairdressers, parties, doctors, techs--I come away with people's life stories, freely told. Only recently, I read that this approach to human interaction might be a failsafe mechanism for people who can't socialize well. Whatever. I think it's just fascinating.

My tech's story ran along some familiar grooves, in that surprises popped up at every turn. No matter how much our minds want to box in someone at first sight, once you dig into their story, you find these surprises that don't fit the box. Three kids, an oldest daughter who wants to be a pediatric anesthesiologist, a middle daughter who wants to be a paleontologist ("And I can't even spell that!" the tech laughed when she told me), and a youngest daughter, age 4, who was her "menopause baby." She's only two years older than I am, the tech, and this of course led us into a lengthy discussion of how in the world she's been-there/done-that already with menopause.

And then, it turns out that she knows what Asperger's is. Her neighbor's daughter, age 11, has it. In the course of our conversation, I expressed how much we love our own son with Asperger's, what a great kid we think he is. She nodded, continuing her relentless and painful stimulation of my right posterior tibial nerve. That is a big freaking nerve.

There was a calendar on her wall. A family, the dad emerging from an airplane, the two daughters running to him, the mother following up behind. All extraordinarily tall people, and I realize it was the Obamas. I commented that Malia was probably already taller than I and not even a teenager yet. And my tech cut loose with one of her surprises: She had gone to the inauguration, taken her daughters, a niece, slept on a nephew's dining room table in DC, landed in Baltimore in 17 degree weather, met "real Eskimos, the only people there actually dressed for the weather." She had a tearful moment with Anderson Cooper, whom she worships for his good deeds, and she made him cry, too. She spoke with pride that her daughters witnessed this turning point, sadness that her mother and grandmother weren't there to see how so much had changed since they themselves were children in America.

And we bonded, big time, over reliving the excitement of that day. I completely forgot why I was there. She forgot why she was there. We talked for a long time about what it meant to us as parents, period. Not African-American parents or European-mutt-American parents, but just as parents. How, the decade we were born, 13 days before I was born, in fact, MLK was killed in a world riven with unrest, no peace. In one way, we were amazed that it had taken so long to come this far. In another way, we agreed, we were amazed at just how far we had come.

It was time for me to go, and she suddenly turned and indicated a poem hanging on her wall. I can't remember the poem--I can't remember much of anything anymore--but it was about acceptance, about seeing the love, accepting the life, grasping the positive with two hands and not letting go. "I get it," I told her after reading it, nodding. And she said to me, "I love it when I meet people like you. I can tell how much you love your son, how positive you are about him. It's people like that who keep the world moving forward, staying positive."

Thinking about it later, I pondered whether or not I really am a positive person, me, DMFP the cynic, the skeptic, the sarcastic-keep-you-at-arm's length cranky woman. And then I realized, it doesn't matter. As long as I am moving forward, staying positive, actually being positive, that's Me, being a positive person. Even if inside, I often feel like Frederick, the misanthropic older boyfriend in Hannah and Her Sisters.

We practically hugged goodbye, enjoying our mutual reminiscences about our president and that turning point in our country's history. This morning, I heard that he'd been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Already, in that room, our connection over him, about the way he marked a change for our nation, had left me feeling more at peace and more positive than I'd felt in a long time, reawakening the thrill of that cold day--and memories of Aretha Franklin's amazing hat. And the greatest surprise of all for me? My tech's name. I came to that room feeling trepidatious, tense, and self-involved. But when I walked in, it was there that I became acquainted with something I'd left behind lately: Hope. And thanks to Hope, I've got a renewed sense of peace, of moving forward, of grasping the positive with two hands, not ever letting go.