Tunesday : River

River

Written and Performed by Joni Mitchell

It's coming on Christmas 
They're cutting down trees 
They're putting up reindeer 
And singing songs of joy and peace 
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on 

But it don't snow here 
It stays pretty green 
I'm going to make a lot of money 
Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene 
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on 

I wish I had a river so long 
I would teach my feet to fly 
I wish I had a river I could skate away on 
I made my baby cry

He tried hard to help me 
You know, he put me at ease 
And he loved me so naughty 
Made me weak in the knees 
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on

I'm so hard to handle 
I'm selfish and I'm sad 
Now I've gone and lost the best baby 
That I ever had 
I wish I had a river I could skate away on 

Oh, I wish I had a river so long 
I would teach my feet to fly 
I wish I had a river 
I could skate away on 
I made my baby say goodbye 

It's coming on Christmas 
They're cutting down trees 
They're putting up reindeer 
And singing songs of joy and peace 
I wish I had a river I could skate away on

What a bittersweet Christmas song, so full of the regretful melancholy that can affect people at this time of year. I have so much to be thankful for - my health and family, my comfort and safety, my abundance of everything - and even so, I can feel a melancholic pull; even in the midst of such abundance and surrounded by people who want me to be happy. River is the perfect song to listen to and explore strange and ambivalent feelings; a classic, whether sung by Joni Mitchell or Robert Downey Jr (and just why hasn't he done more singing?)

This Christmas was much the same routine as every Christmas, so I'm just going to highlight a few things. To begin with, this is the first year that my inlaws are living in the same city as us, having been moved closer to share a house with their daughter and son-in-law. With my mother-in-law succumbing slowly to the dementia of Alzheimer's, and my eighty-year-old father-in-law no longer able to care for both his wife and their house, this move was necessary, and to be honest, overdue. But Bev is just far enough gone not to understand why they made the change; she apparently is often in tears, threatening to move back to London herself if Jim won't move with her. When we went out to New Hamburg to attend a Christmas dinner with her side of the family, every time someone would ask her how she was liking Cambridge, Bev would answer, "It's okay, but I don't remember anyone asking me if I wanted to move there". And there's truth to that - five years ago Bev would have agreed to the move, but neither she or Jim thought it was time yet; with friends, family, and excellent neighbours living nearby, they had support and reason to stay put. Over the years, as people passed away - not to mention Bev's increasing care-related needs - they became more isolated, and finally, Jim agreed to start thinking about the move. They found an appropriate house so quickly that, really, Bev wasn't asked her opinion, and I suppose with her memory increasingly failing from day-to-day, we didn't think it much mattered. And I don't mean to be cruel when I say that: for the previous year or so, Bev had spent many days looking out the front window of the house she had lived in for over thirty years saying, "It's nice here, but I think we should go home soon." If Bev could no longer recognise that as her house, what difference would it make if she lived somewhere else; somewhere better, with no stairs to negotiate and with her daughter right upstairs to help with everything?

But, I guess it did matter, and Bev does indeed know (and resent) that she wasn't consulted about this. And that's a melancholy Christmas tale. (By the by, Jim dug out and brought along their Christmas sweaters from that picture up there, and Dave and I still had - and wore on Christmas morning - our own sweaters; impossibly hard to believe that that was twenty-five years ago; that twenty-five years later we'd all be living in the same city under these circumstances.) Here's what I'm most surprised about the progression of Bev's Alzheimer's: I expected memory problems - and there certainly are those - but I had no idea that the disease would be so centered in her body; that it would be about wetting the bed at night (because she often wakes up in the middle of the night and takes off her "uncomfortable" Depends), and about constantly trying (and sometimes failing) to rush to the washroom on legs that have stiffened up from sitting too long - she walks, unsteadily, with a hunch now; struggles to step over a door's low threshold. A UT infection recently left her sitting slumped in her chair, unable to life up her fork to eat scrambled eggs: it's the body that's failing the quickest, but the disease has given Bev no shame about it. Peeing in her bed, pooping down her leg onto the floor, having her grown daughter wash her in the shower - Bev is taking it all in stride, not recognising the increased care that her needs are tasking her family with. She has no idea why this move needed to happen, so of course she's resentful about it. Dave has stressed to her a couple of times that the move was primarily for his Dad's benefit - that he needed help caring for her - but there is some disagreement over whether or not she should be defined as a burden (despite her memory doctor having used this tactic). And it's funny to me that after watching first her grandfather and then her own mother - both of whom lived with her near their ends - succumbing to the indignities of Alzheimer's, Bev has zero recognition of what's happening to her. And, of course, that's a blessing.

And here's another melancholy tale - My mother called to ask me about my Paris trip, and after saying that she gave up flying because the idea of breathing in the air that others had breathed out made her gag, she remembered this story: Apparently, the first Christmas after my Mum, Dad, and brother Kyler moved back to Ontario, her sister Carole (who was living a three hour drive away in Kingston at the time) called and said my mother should visit her for Christmas. Mum said that she needed to be home for Christmas for Dad and Kyler, but Carole was feeling lonely so far away from the rest of their family in PEI, and she again insisted that Mum come for Christmas. My mother pointed out that Carole was there with her husband and two children - she would hardly be alone for Christmas - but again, Carole said that she needed to be surrounded by family at the holidays, and finally, Mum agreed to drive down for Boxing Day. There was a big ice storm that year, however, and when Mum called Carole on Christmas Day and said that she couldn't possibly drive to Kingston the next day, Carole lost it and said that Mum could take the train then. Mum, apparently, then began talking this crazy talk about being sickened by the thought of breathing in the air that other people had just breathed out, she couldn't possibly endure being stuck on a train with strangers, but again, Carole played the family card and shamed Mum into taking that train. The punchline: After leaving a resentful Dad and Kyler, after putting herself through the mental torture of being cooped up in that traincar of strangers' expelled breaths, when Carole and my cousin Kaitlin met Mum at the train station, they mocked her meanly and mercilessly for having worn her fur coat. Mum said it was awful, and they didn't stop talking about it the whole time she was there, and then she just kind of trailed off in her thoughts. (By the by: after divorcing that husband and alienating herself from her two children, Carole is now suffering from Alzheimer's herself and has been put, against her will, into assisted living.)

So, after this story of what you'd do for family and the coming-together pressures of the holidays, my girls called their Nan and Pop twice on Christmas morning, not getting an answer either time (but leaving a long message the second time). Mum called me later in the afternoon, talked about the weather for a while (the high winds had knocked out their power), and without either mentioning the word "Christmas" or commenting on the presents I bought for her, she suddenly asked to speak to someone else and that was alls I got by way of Christmas greetings from my own parents (if you don't count the card and cheque Dad sent; I count that as the minimum requirement of acknowledging your children and grandchildren). And that makes me melancholy, even when I was surrounded by my brothers and their families, along with Dave's extended family, for many days around Christmas, enjoying several parties here and there, having the inlaws sleep at our house for a couple of days as they've been doing for twenty+ years, even though they live in town now. There's family and then there's family, and when my own parents inevitably need to call on us, we have no idea how we can be of help from way up here. Move one or the other of them up to live with one of us? Force one or the other, against their will, into assisted living? No clue.

I wish I had a river.