Circles

The whole thing began with a cracked tooth 23 and a half years ago. I blame my son.  My pregnancy robbed my teeth of calcium and resulted in the vertical split.  I’ve been told — not by a dental professional — that this only happens to women who haven’t cared for their teeth.  Be that as it might, in 1991, my dentist in Fayetteville, Arkansas put a temporary crown on the tooth and told me to come back when the baby had been born.

I got that temporary crown replaced 15 years later.  I’d had no problems with it whatsoever.  A dentist just decided that it might be time.

Since then, the “permanent” crown has had to be replaced three times and later, the tooth had to have a root canal.  Against my better judgment, I let this happen at the hands of an endodontist whom I’d never previously met and who struck me as a little creepy.

I should have trusted my instincts.  A month later, that root canal failed, and now I have half a tooth, a chronic infection, and no more dental benefits available on my policy until 2015 dawns in two months.  Oy-veh.

Now, hear me well:  I’m not complaining.  I’m just thinking about circles.  The circle of life.  Circular reasoning.  The nearness of beginning to end in a chain of events that leads one back to the beginning.  I started with a cracked tooth and ended with a cracked tooth.  On the way from point A to point A, I experienced all kinds of grief including an exasperated attack on my character by someone who blamed me for this situation.  One wonders, then, what can be learned from this circular experience.

In my favorite Edward Albee play, one of the two characters on whom the play centers tells the other, “Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.”  (Edward Albee, The Zoo Story, 1958).  That’s the way it’s been with my tooth.  Now I  will no doubt have it pulled and be done with it.  I tried everything else — or, at least, everything I have been offered, and those efforts have brought me back to the beginning.

Circles can be frustrating — like the cycle that my tooth has followed.  Circles can be  painful — like my tooth; or an argument that starts with you never listen and ends with I’m tired of talking.  Or circles can be beautiful:  “Life is like dancing.  People go round and round, never really getting anywhere, but Oh, what joy in such circles!”  (Bill O’Fallon, 1974).  And the circle of life?  Where would we be without it?

We live, we die, we dance, we give birth, and then our children take up the dance, continuing the unbroken circle long after they lay us in our graves.  Sometimes those children take the form of flesh and bone. Sometimes we give birth to paintings, poetry, bridges and skyscrapers.  What joy, indeed. Well worth a little toothache.

 

 

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