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greenstormIt's not done yet.
Angus was gonna come over and hold my hand. He couldn't make it till late, his move takes precedence, and my mental fortitude didn't survive that long.
I couldn't find the guide with the instructions.
It's interesting to think about the role of the expert here. In so many things we turn to experts: experts make our music, our food, our homes, our clothes, our toys. When we need something fixed, more often than not we call an expert before trying to dissect the problem.
I've been trying to reclaim my sense of entitlement to do things that experts tend to do. I sing sometimes, knowing that I am not an expert and do it for joy rather than skill, and I am slowly learning the drum. I cook; when I eat in restaurants I don't surrender myself up to an expert's hands but analyse, consider, I take the meal I'm given as if it's a conversation with the chef (why did you do that? How did you do this? This is exciting, this is not so good). I create, if you like, my own religious beliefs. I wear clothing I have made, or collected, rather than following stylistic recommendations. I poke things down pipes and wiggle wires before calling a plumber or an electrician. I raise some of my own food, and forage some; I do not leave it to experts.
I myself am an expert, at gardening and landscaping, and I'm called in by other people.
Death, that seems like it should be administered by an expert. But then, I am a rat expert. The carbon dioxide tank I use is far more humane than the heart-shot most vets will try to administer to a rat, knowing nothing about the animal. It's more humane, I think, than Lightening dying snuggled against my breast inside my coat on public transit as I took her to the vet, confused and in a strange place away from her cagemates. It's certainly more humane than what happened to Silver.
It also places any and all responsibility for the choice and the action squarely in my own hands. These are my pets, my companions. I rescued Rain and Hooneypie-- Rain was going to be released into the endowment lands. Honeypie was from the Petaluma pet hoarding situation. And Hector-- Hector is my baby, Lightening's baby, hand raised by myself from the time he was this big (there he is on my shoulder, tickling me with his tail). His beginning was in my hands. So will his end be.
And here we think about the term humane, which has come for most of us to mean pleasant, or at least not unpleasant. This thing that I'm doing is an assumption of responsibility for something that's traditionally been a human domain -- killing -- but which has been shunted off on experts. What I'm doing is human, is trying my best in the muddle of choices we're all given. It's pleasanter for the rats than a vet's death. Is it pleasanter than a lingering life, with encroaching paralysis and discomfort creeping up more every day? It's human, to make a choice. Is it humane?
Choices are losing me here in any case. It's late. I'm tired. My heart is heavy, like a lead thing swinging around in there.
At the folk fest, someone I met played me a note on a drum, a single note, that made me cry and it made my heart jump inside me. He's coming to do a workshop here to teach me to make a drum. Here on the one hand is sadness, there on the other is joy and anticipation.
Everything else is a stew of things in between.
Goodnight.
Angus was gonna come over and hold my hand. He couldn't make it till late, his move takes precedence, and my mental fortitude didn't survive that long.
I couldn't find the guide with the instructions.
It's interesting to think about the role of the expert here. In so many things we turn to experts: experts make our music, our food, our homes, our clothes, our toys. When we need something fixed, more often than not we call an expert before trying to dissect the problem.
I've been trying to reclaim my sense of entitlement to do things that experts tend to do. I sing sometimes, knowing that I am not an expert and do it for joy rather than skill, and I am slowly learning the drum. I cook; when I eat in restaurants I don't surrender myself up to an expert's hands but analyse, consider, I take the meal I'm given as if it's a conversation with the chef (why did you do that? How did you do this? This is exciting, this is not so good). I create, if you like, my own religious beliefs. I wear clothing I have made, or collected, rather than following stylistic recommendations. I poke things down pipes and wiggle wires before calling a plumber or an electrician. I raise some of my own food, and forage some; I do not leave it to experts.
I myself am an expert, at gardening and landscaping, and I'm called in by other people.
Death, that seems like it should be administered by an expert. But then, I am a rat expert. The carbon dioxide tank I use is far more humane than the heart-shot most vets will try to administer to a rat, knowing nothing about the animal. It's more humane, I think, than Lightening dying snuggled against my breast inside my coat on public transit as I took her to the vet, confused and in a strange place away from her cagemates. It's certainly more humane than what happened to Silver.
It also places any and all responsibility for the choice and the action squarely in my own hands. These are my pets, my companions. I rescued Rain and Hooneypie-- Rain was going to be released into the endowment lands. Honeypie was from the Petaluma pet hoarding situation. And Hector-- Hector is my baby, Lightening's baby, hand raised by myself from the time he was this big (there he is on my shoulder, tickling me with his tail). His beginning was in my hands. So will his end be.
And here we think about the term humane, which has come for most of us to mean pleasant, or at least not unpleasant. This thing that I'm doing is an assumption of responsibility for something that's traditionally been a human domain -- killing -- but which has been shunted off on experts. What I'm doing is human, is trying my best in the muddle of choices we're all given. It's pleasanter for the rats than a vet's death. Is it pleasanter than a lingering life, with encroaching paralysis and discomfort creeping up more every day? It's human, to make a choice. Is it humane?
Choices are losing me here in any case. It's late. I'm tired. My heart is heavy, like a lead thing swinging around in there.
At the folk fest, someone I met played me a note on a drum, a single note, that made me cry and it made my heart jump inside me. He's coming to do a workshop here to teach me to make a drum. Here on the one hand is sadness, there on the other is joy and anticipation.
Everything else is a stew of things in between.
Goodnight.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-31 05:23 pm (UTC)http://www.alysion.org/euthanasia/