When I began drafting my hospital scenes, I didn't know how to refer to my reason for writing them. I wanted to protect my daughter's privacy but realized that my posts would have little credibility unless I could put a face to them. No one hangs out in hospitals without cause.
But how to refer to her? Grey's Anatomy to the rescue, a hospital show, no less, providing the proper referent. I remembered the scene where (oh, do I hope I've got this right) Cristina says to Meredith, "You're my person." And thus "my daughter" became "my person" for the sake of this writing.
So that's the foundation for this note, about how someone else can be one's "person." I always think of that phrase when the show is on.
Next layer: my hard drive crashes in the midst of my person's ordeal, causing me to spend a lot of time on the A. New Yorkers will understand this next sentence. If a train could be my person, it would be the A - with the B, which sadly is shutting down for a couple of years, a close contender (but all of that is for another post). The A has this beguiling trait: it races from 59th Street at Columbus Circle to 125th Street without a stop. In subway life, this is at least an eon's worth of time saved - and because the hospital that my person endured was just a few stops beyond 125th, I clocked many a ride on the A, racing downtown for various things, including numerous journeys taking my broken machine to a surgeon near Columbus Circle.
Much as I love the A, I hated this particular trip that I am about to describe. I was often tired during my person's ordeal. No, I was always tired during those many weeks and, when unforeseen obstacles got thrown in my path, I became a very unhappy person. Grouchy. Irritable. Ungiven to smiling at strangers.
On this particular Sunday (third layer), I was very very tired and really really annoyed. I was desperately seeking my files, which, as noted below, were supposed to be on my backup drive but which were in fact...missing! I was carrying about fifteen pounds of technology, when adding in all the cables and power cords and my phone and its charger and my camera and its battery. And it was hot. And I only had a little time. And all I could think about were the twelve blocks ahead of me once I got off the train, the long slog to the Mac technician's shop, which, in fact, was in his bedroom, or his bedroom was in his shop, or it was his photography studio because, being a Mac tech, he was, obviously and actually, a photographer, and clearly headed for Paris in a few days, not to mention the gym, toward which I was preventing his departure because I was a little late and...
The A was pulling into Columbus Circle. I slung my backpack over my shoulders in a less than graceful swoop. One strap caught in my pendant, the other tangled around my purse, my shirt got caught behind my back, falling off my shoulder altogether, the train jerked to a halt and I stumbled off the A onto the platform directly into the path of a "person" waiting to get on the train.
Have you figured it out yet? Cristina Yang! Yes, Sandra Oh! And until tonight, when I caught up with the season opener, I hadn't put person-to-person together. Cristina (and your writers), that bedraggled woman with the forlorn look on that Sunday several weeks ago, owes you (all) one big THANK YOU for providing cover for "my person."
