And other mysteries of true crime, life and MS
Bilan is missing and I don’t know what happened to him!!
Bilan is the real giraffe who lives in a bracelet on my left arm. No, I didn’t lose the bracelet or a part of it. I lost Bilan and it’s horrible.
Perhaps further explanation is needed.
My dear friend Annmarie vacationed out west and visited the San Diego Zoo. In the gift shop she bought me this beautiful bracelet with a giraffe in it, on it, whatever. As a native Cape Codder I lean more towards creatures of the sea than the land, but I love this bracelet.
What Annmarie didn’t know was that once I went to a zoo here in Massachusetts and in the giraffe enclosure there was a high landing so you could be eye to eye with the giraffes. There I was face to face with a super friendly giraffe and we brain bonded. I felt an instant connection in his intense brown eyes, his giraffe smile and the intensity of his drooling problem.
(I don’t really have a drooling problem. Unless I am in a very deep sleep with my head on Peter’s chest. Or so he has mentioned.)
So, I have a thing for giraffes.
The bracelet came with a card that gave an app where you can track the giraffe on the bracelet. The first time I tried the app I got confused, was linked to a site that wanted money even though the card that came with the bracelet said no money was needed, felt scammed, got worried and decided it was best to take to my bed and pull the covers over my head. There I stayed. For four days.
(Maybe a little less time but it felt like four days.)
Three weeks went by and I tried the app again. This time it worked, and I was connected to a beautiful, brown-eyed giraffe named Bilan who lives in Kenya where he frolics happily in the jungle. Or maybe the desert. Or the savanna. Is there a difference between the jungle, the desert and the savanna?
Regardless, I enjoyed keeping tabs on Bilan. Maybe Bilan was even a direct ancestor of the giraffe I met years ago at the zoo? Stranger things have happened.
Then one day I opened the app and there was no information on Bilan. He was just gone!
The app said not to worry, sometimes giraffes will lose their tracker naturally while strutting about and then the app assigned me to a new giraffe named Fowsio. But I even don’t know Fowsio!
How can I develop a new connection to Fowsio when I don’t know what happened to Bilan?
Fowsio isn’t even a good giraffe name!
This may seem like a silly thing to stress about in the grand scheme of thousands of things to stress about.
Life- overwhelming.
Politics- don’t even get me started.
Multiple Sclerosis– taking to my bed and pulling up the covers again.
More specifically-
Why do people who don’t have MS, don’t want to know about life with MS always try to tell you how to live your life with MS?
How could someone be such a bad parker as to leave their vehicle like this? Especially since this disabled parking spot is on an incline!
How is it that everyone complains about AI and yet the powers that be continue to make us rely on AI?
How come technology is supposed to make everything easier but in my world, it only does for so long? Then the tech stops working and I whine, cry and call upon my overly teched Peter who doesn’t even like techy things to make it all better.
Furthermore, why are doctors going tech on us? You finally get used to their patient portals and then they change them or I finally get an appointment for a physical only to be told that my doctor is only doing telehealth that day and since you can’t do a physical through telehealth, I must reschedule for a whole month later?
To keep my soul and mind from getting consumed by what I call the big three issues and the questions around them-
What will my future look like with MS?
How the hell will I pay for that future?
When the dust settles in this extreme time of political divide, will life be normal?
Affordable?
I have learned that focusing on smaller mysteries is the answer.
And sometimes these distractions help- small worries or worries that I can’t do anything about are easier in the struggle.
How come Cape Codder’s never worried about sharks before Jaws but just a few decades after the movie and the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act which caused seals to multiply and now, suddenly, we have to look for fins every time we get in the water?
If they can put a man on the moon, and send three men and a woman to circle the dark side of the moon, why can’t they figure out if aliens exist and if they do, why are they so shy?
If eating delicious, fattening sweets causes you to gain weight, how come avoiding those foods doesn’t make you lose weight?
Were satiated lions in Kenya and the surrounding areas questioned about the disappearance of Bilan?
Where is Jimmy Hoffa?
Who really killed JonBenet?
(Perhaps I watch too much true crime TV.)
Why doesn’t my infusion center serve margaritas?
Pondering small mysteries usually helps, but not always.
Annmarie recognized the need for distraction in my anxious brain clutter and decided what would help was something called a Sound Floating Bath. It sounded-pun intended-great and I was all in!
And it WAS great.
Floating for a whole hour in a peaceful pool without having to look for great whites was heaven.
But my brain came up with new mysteries.
Why did the guided meditation facilitator keep talking?
Why did she want me to go venturing into the woods, pluck an orange from a tree and eat it sitting against that tree?
What about sticky fingers?
What about ants?
What about ants crawling on my sticky fingers?
See what I mean?
Still, the floating was a nice distraction. And it did help.
So does pondering things that don’t have a huge impact on my life.
There is a time for those mysteries.
But there is also a time for the big ones which brings us back to the original, very important question-
WHERE IS BILAN????
FYI- I’m always trying to promote my writing and broaden the reach of my books. To that end, I think this interview with UK author and poet Peter Okonkwo may help. I am pleased with how it turned out and grateful to him for taking the time to talk with me.
If you are so inclined, you can check it out P. English Literature and if you like it, please give it a thumbs up on YouTube!
PS- This Peter isn’t my Peter but like my fondness for giraffes, I clearly have a fondness for Peter’s!