Clinging To Life

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• August 13, 2023

“Gertrude, are you dead?”

These are usually the first words I utter in the morning, or the first thing I say when I come home. Gertrude, of course, is my beta fish (who identifies as they/them) of about three years. They are dying. Gertrude’s metallic shining blue scales have been fading to a flatter color. Gertrude struggles to swim to eat and often just lays on the big rock, or sometimes very grimly, lays on this skull rock— “nevermore, nevermore!”

I wonder, sometimes, what makes the suffering, and particularly old, want to keep on ticking. I’d seen it in the days I worked in the nursing home. Sometimes people will want to stay alive for a shitty meal. I could never understand. And others would just wait for those who they love to visit them.

My only living grandparent, my Mom’s mom, is in her 90s. Grandma Emily, among other family members of the George side (myself included) have had odd health issues but also somewhat miraculous ones that seem to defy science itself. I’m not rushing my grandma’s life, who absolutely loves living, despite her quality of life slowly deteriorating (and she absolutely has a ravenous appetite, one of the biggest signs that someone wants to stay), but science really should study her body and brain. I mean… this is a woman who after 6 kids said childbirth didn’t hurt, contracted COVID multiple times but never had symptoms, and has basically been pain free and rarely ever got sick until recent years. It literally defies logic. So much about Emily’s life seems fantastical— not in a fairytale way. She didn’t have it easy, like ever. My Pop-pop, her husband, wasn’t a particularly doting nor loving man. But she has a lot of stories that are so crazy, and I’m not calling her liar, they are hard to believe. But life does teach you that reality can be stranger than fiction.

Loving living comes so naturally to some. I mean… it is natural, I suppose. Having the desire to crash the ship is the more unnatural response, I suppose. Life is only easy for lucky children. And even then, people underestimate     and forget that being a kid can be challenging and lonely. Once you’re an adult, life is hard and will forever continue to be. But that doesn’t mean living has to be hard.

Cracking open a beer at the beach, my little speaker playing rock n’ roll loud enough for my going deaf ears to enjoy, but hopefully not too loud to disturb others (though if they don’t like my music, fuck em – haha). I think about clinging to love. And maybe that’s all life is. Me, clinging to a career as a writer and a comedian. Hoping to make more money so I can continue to more than just survive, but thrive and travel, eat great meals with my family and friends. Laugh and make people laugh for money and art. I think about how much I’m not sure if I feel like I belong in comedy. Or that I feel like I don’t feel much belonging anywhere. I’m not sure I ever did, besides fleeting moments. Though I always did feel like I belonged in the ocean, swimming. I always felt home there, even when the waves beat me up (sometimes especially when waves beat me up!). When it’s blue and warm, I could be blissful in the ocean, sometimes even I’m happiest alone out there (where I take off all my clothes and swim naked, swimming is the best when you’re naked). I mourn Maui. My favorite place in the entire world, burned to a crisp. I think about Maui like I think about “the one who got away.” Absolute paradise. The two things keeping me from permanently relocating there have been my career and my family. I love New York, but being in love with a city is dangerous thing. It can never love you back.

But an artist will cling to their dreams like Gertrude clings to life. And dream of a better place. That you know exists. Even if it’s currently burned, people without a home at their home. And one of these mornings, when I wake up and say “Gertrude are you dead yet?” Gertrude will answer. I’m kidding, it’s a fish, it doesn’t talk to me (USUALLY). Despite isolation (Beta fishes have to live alone or they literally kill each other), the little habitat I maintain for Gertrude is home. It reminds me of my apartment. Tiny. Cozy. Enough.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to not live so isolated. In some ways, it’s so gratifying. It’s peaceful. There’s a level of freedom. I never have answer to anyone but myself. Though that can be tiresome and tricky when you have a brain with multiple systems.

I was chatting with a friend of mine who is renovating his house. An ongoing process. “I love this house,” he said, “I figured out how to take it a part, piece by piece, but I’m struggling to put it back together.”

“That’s a good metaphor for life,” I said. Everything will be undone. Paradises. People. Even poetry. And we’ll put them back together when we love them.

There will be another Beta fish. But there will only ever be one Gertrude. And I do enjoy looking at Gertrude’s beauty and love of just swimming and being.

As Gertrude’s scales become noticeably old and less vibrant, I think of the children’s story “The Rainbow Fish.” You probably know it. A really pretty fish with these rainbow and iridescent scales is the envy of other fishes. It’s supposed to be a book to promote sharing. Because the fish starts giving away her scales because others want them so bad. Till eventually she only has one of the “rainbow” scales left. While I am for sharing and helping out fellow humans, I actually now think this is communist book. Why should the beautiful fish give away pieces of herself just because others want to posses a piece of her, without anything in return?

It’s important cling to your own life. Not just other people. Not just beauty. Or empty relationships. Or drugs. Or sex. Or vanity. Or material possessions. Gertrude what are you living for still. I will ask and there will be no answer. I look out into the universe and ask it what we are here for and it never answers. But deep down, I know it’s love. Whatever that looks like for you. Whatever that looks like for me.

Gertrude. Are you dead yet?