SURFIN’ SAFARI SUMMER THREE - DAY NINETEEN - September 9, 2021

Vanya, Vilma, Mary, Maria, Masha, and Lucy have all been through the house in the past week to work with, check on, and suss out Anna. They all have days they can’t make it and want to switch out and it is mine to juggle their schedules.

Wesley calls me Lord Grantham after the patriarch of “Downton Abbey.”

It has all been to the good. Anna’s agitation is almost completely gone and she is off the nefarious sedative Seroquel, which first calms and later bothers. Once in a while, a little melatonin gummy does the trick in rounding her rough edges.

The baths, nurses visits, and skilled company she enjoys are a portrait of society’s challenge. Our neighborhood is rife with people living on the streets. When we pass them on daily hikes I hear their cries and exclamations and they are so much like my wife’s because they are ill in the way she is. They just don’t have anybody to walk them.

And the only way to treat them is with these “wrap-around,” team-driven services that view the whole being, and environment, as requiring attention and healing. It is a tall order.

Saint Safe Mary de la Maria Segura showed and, as usual, there was an upward transformation visible to Anna's face by day's end. She loves Safe Mary to death and immediately launched into bird cries upon her arrival.

Too-roo-too-roo-too-roo!

It has been Safe Mary’s belief Anna was going to “wake up” from her illness. I neither discouraged or took heart in her optimism, but I know the face of this implacable enemy.

We think metaphorically; about lights going back on and pathways opening up anew.

But I have seen the PT-Scan and the dark places in the brain where no energy fires and no life reverberates. It’s not light switches or canals, but bits of brain browning or blueing or whatever corrosive process is going on in there where sleek silhouettes for lacy clothing were once contrived.

On Wednesday, Maria changed her prediction. “She will not wake up, but she will be able to live here,” which made me sad, even though we've achieved our goal (for now).

The surf was very poor. Small weak waves were breaking practically on the shore. Took to the chop figuring it was worth a paddle out and hardly dangerous ...Was promptly dumped into the sand and banged my head. Never let your guard down out there.

Took a nap under the sun and it was a good day even though I caught no waves, because there were egrets and dolphins and saltwind and other delights that make surfing much better than a thrill-ride exercise and more like a way of life.

That silly sobriquet, “My Happy Place,” is too apt here to be ignored. From our earliest days Anna, Wesley and I have been parking on Windward and walking three steps to the sand and almost always departed replenished.

Now, there is an apartment for rent right there. SoCal coastal. Probably pricey, but we are “Beverly Hills Adjacent” in local realty argot and pay plenty.

Would I tire of surfing? Die by tsunami? Would it still be a Happy Place if the claptrap of my life were to take up residence there?

Only a phone call would begin to answer such questions.