Let’s get it out of the way: yes.  That is a very close-up picture of my right butt cheek, nearly two weeks after it landed with a most painful THWONK onto solid ice.  I tried to make the pic as bruise-centric as possible and not make it–y’know–a gratuitous picture of my ass.  It’s to show you how much damage I sustained, and that I wasn’t exaggerating. I’m really not a whiner, I can withstand pain like a champ, I don’t allow injuries to interfere with my day-to-day activities, but the impact of this fall brought tears to my eyes, as I documented in this post.  I had a giant lump forming there immediately, and I knew it would bruise, but I had no idea the amount of soft-tissue damage I sustained.  Two days after the fall I went for a run and was surprised that it started to really hurt; after all, I didn’t land on a joint or a bone.  But the muscle itself was quite injured, and using it in such a vigorous way caused it to ache and throb.  

Which I just ran through, of course.  I’m training for my first half-marathon and can’t let an owie slow me down.   I got me a tuff ass, people.

But it could have been worse.  A whole lot worse.  So there you go: my ass is just fine.

 
*   *   *   *   *

 I’m as sick of writing about my flash stint at rehab as you are sick of reading about it.  But it must be done.  After all, I’m someone who finishes what they begin, for the most part.  I don’t particularly enjoy having things dangle into outer space like a limp penis through a parted bathrobe (which is still quite nice).  

My ex used to boast about being a “completist,” but that word doesn’t mean what he thinks it means.   At any rate, we need to wrap this up.  

So.

I abandoned my tale when I was feeling extremely irritated at being teamed up with unhappy Adam for cooking duties.  A week of what I anticipated as being merrily occupied by chopping, slicing, blanching, frying, boiling, plating, serving, and eventually eating, was sullied by the presence of one of the most dour individuals at Turning Point, and realistically, one of the most dour individuals to inhabit our beautiful planet.  Adam was just so ding-dong miserable, and there wasn’t a solitary thing I could do about it.  I understood, and understand, that rehab is a psychologically-trying commitment, and that not everyone is groovily doing the Electric Slide for their tenure.  But Adam was just a sad sack and an insufferable malcontent on a level that I hadn’t quite encountered before.  

And having to endure this while cooking?  Why me, lord?

The first stint doing chicken and vegetarian curry went fairly well, I suppose, apart from an utterly infuriating exchange that took place with a client.  You see, I was quite serious about making a delicious Indian lunch for everyone.  After pawing through the herb and spice supply in the pantry, I was delighted to find peppercorns, fenugreek, mustard seed, chili flakes, coriander seed, turmeric, and nearly everything else required for a from-scratch curry paste.  As this is something I make on a semi-regular basis at home, I did not need the recipe binder, and I began frying the spices in two giant pots: one for the chicken curry, one for the vegetarian.

I cooked up the spices and added the butter, the coconut milk, the tomatoes.

I tended to both curries as Adam stood to the side, stirring occasionally, perhaps chopping up some garlic and onion when I asked.  He sang along to the dumb pop songs on the radio, too.

I found a colossal pot and made enough steamed rice for thirty people.

I tasted, adjusted, tasted again, added, tasted, and eventually left things to simmer.

I was very happy with the two curries and was eager to serve people what I had made nearly single-handedly, also looking forward to tackling that evening’s dinner service.  I wish I could remember what that was.

As people dug into their Indian food (at least eight people wanted the vegetarian version), there were murmurs of satisfaction and delight.  Because there was still some clean-up to do, I wasn’t quite ready to join my comrades, but it was very nice to see and hear them enjoy what I had made pretty much on my own.

One client came up to the kitchen and said, “That was really good.  How’d you do that?  We didn’t have food like this before.”

Adam flounced (yes, flounced) to the counter and said, “Oh, I’m so glad you liked it.  I just sauteed some spices, then added tomatoes and coconut milk…”

I didn’t just see red, I saw every conceivable shade of crimson, scarlet, vermillion, rouge, carmine, burgundy, ruby, and cardinal.  Had this been another environment and another situation, Adam would have been sobbing in a corner somewhere after a severe dressing-down on my part.  

It didn’t even end here.  A day or two later, pasta was on the menu.  I insisted on concocting a vegetarian alternative to the scheduled bolognese, both of which I know how to make in my sleep.  As Adam danced along to yet more stupid pop songs on the kitchen radio (at the time, the two tunes in regular rotation were The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” and some insufferable noise called “Dance Monkey” by another ninny), I diligently minced up the ingredients for a necessary mirepoix, crushed whole tinned tomatoes by hand, fried up a couple pounds of nauseating ground beef, eyeballed the necessary Italian herbs for such a huge quantity of sauce, lightly dusted some cinnamon and measured red wine vinegar into the vegetarian pot, and estimated how many packets of dry spaghetti would be required for almost thirty hungry individuals.

Adam decided to ask me what would be the worst question of the week: “You do know how long it takes to cook pasta, right?”

I don’t mind admitting that I had some thoughts.  Those thoughts mostly consisted of grabbing Adam by the nape of his neck, forcibly walking him over to the industrial gas stove, hearing him screech but pretending I was deaf, and lowering each side of his face onto the flames.  

I don’t mind admitting that I have violent tendencies.  I don’t.  Because we all do.  I will never act out upon the worst of them, and as the writer Saul Bellow once said, A thought-murder a day keeps the psychiatrist away.  

I’m not sure how I dealt with Adam for those first few days.  I can’t remember very much about the meals we prepared, but I am pretty sure that there was an Asian stir-fry in there somewhere.  I am quite sure there was an attempt at Mexican-style enchiladas.  I am very sure that I did most of the prep and cooking, and insisted upon the vegetarian version of every single meat-containing dish.  I am entirely sure that kicking him in the face and then stuffing him into the industrial dishwasher flashed across my mind during every single meal service.  He still isn’t the most horrible human I have ever met, but during a time when I was not only working on bettering myself as a person but enthusiastic about cooking good food for some new friends, he absolutely brought me down.  I hope he’s in a better place now.  I truly do.

*   *   *   *   *

Wednesday, March 11, 2020.

In my previous post, I shared the journal entry that I had scrawled very early on the morning of this infamous day.  I had finally been granted some freedom at the facility, and I had taken to the routine and the schedule of rehab.  Eleven days in and I finally found my groove, my rhythm, and was entirely prepared to see this one out for as long as I could.  My partner was very proud of me for how I had adapted, and was holding things down at home to the best of his ability (which basically meant Don’t kill the cat, don’t kill the plants).  

We had completed group check-in and had breakfast, and there was another activity somewhere in there, too.  Then, just after lunch (I think I might have prepared veggie and meat burgers), the director of Turning Point announced via a very quick series of printed-out and posted bulletins throughout the house that he needed to meet with everyone outside, in the courtyard, at about 1:30 PM.  This was the area where everyone smoked–I do believe that Mackenzie and I were the only two people in the entire place who did not smoke–but he stated emphatically that there were to be no cigarettes during this important get-together.

 On this very sunny, very lovely day, we crowded around Kevin.  I am going to paraphrase what he said, but the essence of it went like this:

“Okay, guys, so…the World Health Organization has officially declared that the coronavirus is a pandemic.  It’s a very big deal.  This means that, starting right now, we have to be on guard.  Nobody is allowed to go out anymore; not for meetings, or to the gym, or to the community centre, or anywhere at all.  You guys are expected to stay here until further notice.  There can’t be guests visiting us anymore.  Definitely no more home visits.  Our facilitators and group leaders for art therapy, yoga, writing class…they can’t come here anymore.  

“This has come as a real shock, and we are trying to figure out what to do now.  Most classes and things on the schedule can’t happen anymore.  You guys basically have to just stay put, and we will try sort this out.  Morning group and meals will still take place, but everything else is cancelled until we get word of how this will play out.  For now, I guess just watch movies together.”

There it was.  A global pandemic.  And we were shut down.

As we shuffled back into the house in disbelief and confusion, I remember my pal Greg muttering under his breath: “Gawd.  GAWD.  I mean, GAWD.  For fucking real?  For real?  GAWD.”  He happened to be one of the more delightful and inspirational turnaround cases at the house, and everyone adored him.  To see and hear him so crushed and irritated meant that this situation was bigger than any of us understood. 

But how could anyone have understood?  This news had been flung at us like a handful of warm shit to the face.  No lead-up, no warning, a slight comprehension of this “coronavirus” over the past couple of months, but nothing indicating that we all suddenly had to don Hazmat suits and pray for our very lives.  Nothing preparing society for what was to come: for the abject and widespread paranoia and terror, for the silently-accepting adherence to goalposts that kept moving, for the health minister to make her way onto our teevees and solemnly talk about how we still weren’t doing enough to stifle this virus, for the nightly news to report nothing except terrifying stories about death and questionable infections, for absolutely no accurate admissions of demographics and susceptibility and recovery, for unemployment and isolation and depression, for rampant overdoses, for unquestioning loyalty to the fourth estate, for untested and immediate vaccines.  

For cheap Chinese masks, masks that weren’t biodegradable.  Masks that our health minister had stated very early on were ineffectual. For gallons of hand sanitizer that removed a layer of skin.  For lineups around the block to buy liquor.  For more deaths in my province from drug overdoses than COVID. For women suddenly forced into home-schooling their children while trying to balance their own jobs, relationships, houses.  For mental illness.  For collateral damage that still hasn’t been properly quantified.  For a virus.  For orchestrated overreaction. For a farce. For a farce. 

I went home two days later, Friday the 13th, because there was no reason to stay.  I was one of the very few and fortunate clients of Turning Point who actually had a home, had a place to go; the majority of people there had lost everything, and after completing their several months of rehab, were trying to organize transition homes for themselves.  They had to construct their lives again from the bottom to the top, while I still had a boyfriend, an apartment, a sweet cat, and a community.  Turning Point, from March 11 onwards, instantly became nothing but a shelter, a sober living house for its residents: no programs, no meetings, no therapy, no integration back into society.  Mackenzie kept in touch with me after I left and informed me that most of the days from there on consisted of watching movies for hours and hours, sleeping, eating, and having group check-in as usual during the mornings.  

She didn’t last much longer there than I did, and eventually, her parents funded an apartment for her right by English Bay–mere blocks from where I live.  She became an uncontrollable mess, and I sadly did not have much to do with her.  However, there is a happy ending for beauteous Mackenzie: last year, in March of 2023, I attended an AA meeting because I was feeling vulnerable (I am not a fan of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I will write about the reasons for this eventually).  Mackenzie was there, in the middle of all these people at this very popular AA location, and was being lauded for celebrating her one-year sobriety cake.  She looked radiant, humble, and proud.  People came to the podium to praise Mackenzie for this unbelievable accomplishment, briefly recounting her first days at AA where she attended the meetings in such a state of total intoxication, nobody had any faith in her recovery or her outcome.  Yet there she was, indeed, Mackenzie most certainly was: sober, tears streaming down her cheeks, and loved by so many people no matter what COVID did to so many others.

I didn’t approach her during that meeting.  I sat in the back, awestruck, and made up my mind about a whole bunch of stuff. I’m still working through it. But I’ve come a very long way.   

I could write here about the madness and weight gain that occurred during 2020, but I won’t.  All of it seems like a waste of time.  But this wasn’t, incredibly, my first and last foray into rehab.  I tried again the following year, and it wound up being a complete fiasco (yet another topic to tackle in the future).  Never underestimate the power of Big Rehab, or the Rehab Industrial Complex: a bajillion-dollar industry that does very little for its vulnerable victims and addicts.  What it comes down to is making a choice, and getting yourself educated.  That’s it, and that’s all.  

Love you.  Yes, I promise I do. I love way too many people for all the wrong reasons. Now go and have a doughnut or something. 

(Reach me at nadya@nadzvera.com)