Three Ordinary Pieces of Writing
by
Kathy Nimmer
"The ordinary can be like medicine"
– Sherman Alexie
An Ordinary Day
It was just an ordinary day. My alarm went off at 5:30 am. I quickly brushed my teeth and just like every other morning, I spent a half hour on the treadmill as I watched the news. There were no earthquakes, hurricanes, or mass murders to speak of. The forecast was sunny, mildly humid and 84 degrees; very typical Chicago weather for this Friday the 13th of July. After 20 minutes of yoga, designed to wakeup my body and my mind, I showered and dressed in khaki pants and a black blouse. I threw on my favorite silver earrings and necklace, and ran out of the house. I drove 9. 2 miles in my midsize metallic green car in medium traffic, listened to my favorite rock and roll station, and sang along with the Rolling Stones “Satisfaction”. At work I answered the phone, unjammed the copier, which someone else had jammed and left for me to fix. It ticked me off. I finalized a work instruction and released the related procedure into our quality document control system. When my best friend Janet called, I told her about my plans for the weekend. My entire family was out of town, and all of my other friends seemed to be vacationing or busy, so I planned to rent some movies, try a new recipe for grilled tuna with lime and chilies, and catch up on some laundry. We laughed about my black and blue breast, which was the result of a nicked artery during a biopsy earlier in the week. I called it my “Barney Boob”. You know...the purple dinosaur. I told Janet that the surgeon had said there was nothing to worry about, just a tiny ordinary lump, a fibroid adenoma...very common in women in their early forties. We made plans to go out and celebrate the following Friday. At exactly Noon, I went outside to sit alone at the picnic table in front of the office building. I ate my green salad, which was full of cucumbers and home grown red tomatoes. After lunch, I walked two miles around the park with my co-worker Tony; he was having trouble with his marriage. I knew he liked me, and I hoped that I didn’t contribute to his marital problems, but I figured it was okay because when he asked me out to dinner I said, “NO”. I don’t date married men. In the afternoon I worked exclusively on documenting the engineering change order process, and updating the instructions for the release of a new part number. At 3:00 pm I decided to go home early. It was such a beautiful day. I drove exactly 9. 2 miles home, with my sunroof open. I sang along to “Drops of Jupiter” by Train. There was no traffic at all; I had beaten the afternoon rush. As I walked in my house the phone rang. I ran to answer it, excited that maybe a friend had a change of plans and we could see a movie, have dinner, or do something. I really did not want to be alone all weekend. I said hello and a vaguely familiar, yet ordinary man’s voice said, “I’m sorry to tell you that we had some unexpected results. You have breast cancer.”
ORDINARY
average build
common place
general good health
nothing special at all
mediocre mediocritymiddle income
usual suspects
basic instinct
boring, boring, boring
unremarkable pathologyplain jane
functional family
usual & customary
simple simplicity
no distinctive markings or scarsregular features
typical typography
routine mammogram
white bread
same old, same old, same oldaverage intelligence
lacking excitement
blah, blah, blah
run of the mill
normal resultsan ordinary day
ordinary people
an ordinary lifeOh, how I long to be ordinary...
Ordinary MedicineWhen I got sick, they gave me medicine. Medicine with poison sounding names like Adramyacin, Cytoxan, and 5 –FU. That was my favorite. I imagined that 5 virulent soldiers ran through my body and when they found a cancer cell, they shrieked “FU”, and those nasty little cells would just shrivel up and die. That is how my medicine worked.
After six months the doctor said, “You are well. You do not need that chemo medicine any more. Just a few weeks of radiation, and you can get on with your life. Your hair will grow back, you won’t want to puke all the time, and you might just have enough energy to make it through the day without a 6-hour nap. You will be back to normal!”
This was all well and good, but what they did not know was that I had a secret. It was buried deep inside, just like one of those self-serving vicious cancer cells. I had forgotten how to be normal. I was consumed with fear. What if the FU guys missed just one microscopic cell that would divide and grow, and divide and grow, and divide and grow until it overwhelmed some critical part of my body and I would once more be swallowed into cancer hell? This was not my life. This was not me. This was not normal.
I needed to find new medicine, potent, astonishing medicine that would get me through each day and sustain me through the rest of my life. Medicine that would stop the fear, and the uncertainty, and the terror. Medicine that would make me normal. I looked for the magic elixir in books and on the Internet; I talked to doctors who wanted to give me chemicals to make me feel better, brighter, happier. No thanks. I had plenty of chemicals over the last six months.
I don’t recall the exact second that I found my cure. In fact it might be more truthful to say that this medicine found me. I believe it started when it snuck out from behind my eyelids, and then it ever so slowly crawled out of my ears. At some point it flew from my fingertips and caressed my tongue. This medicine flowed from my toes, jumped into my nose and exploded from my heart. This medicine was everywhere. This medicine was extraordinary. This medicine was my new normal.
After that buildup I suppose I must divulge the formula, although I imagine that this prescription is suited to my case alone. It consists of endless blue sky; hot buttered popcorn with just a touch of salt; brilliant yellow spring daffodils; virgin snow; sweet, juicy, strawberries; his hand on the small of my back; red velvet sunflowers; a freshly made bed that smells of lavender; twilight; tea on the patio; that pink color you see in the summer sky; Italian love songs; long, dark eye lashes; my mother’s crooked smile; the smell of Krispy Kreme donuts; long, deep, passionate kisses; and fireflies. This is my medicine, the every day reasons to get out of bed, to forget my fears, to live my new normal. This is my ordinary medicine.