Through the Shadowlands

by Julie Rehmeyer

  Afterward, as I drove toward George’s house, I found that I was unable to get my breath, panting, and I felt mild heart pains. I had never felt that way before. Could the trailers have really done this to me, even though I hardly spent any time in them? But I knew that the mere expectation of nasty symptoms might be enough to create them. This was the placebo effect’s evil twin, which scientists call the nocebo effect. But, I didn’t expect that such a short exposure would cause problems. I was much more nervous when I used that bug spray after I was supposedly going to become chemically sensitive, and the bug spray didn’t do a thing to me.

  Still, I had to acknowledge that I’d invested so much now in this idea that my trailers would make me sick that my brain could be playing tricks on me. That idea made a lot of sense, really, so I focused on chilling out. Come on, Julie! I thought. You’re getting worked up over nothing. You’ve built this up so much: “Oh my god, the mold is so bad bad bad!” Take a deep breath, relax, everything is just fine.

  And that did help, a little bit, calming me down even though my heart still sped. A shower at George’s house had a much bigger effect, settling my breath into an even rhythm and slowing my heart rate. I put it out of my mind, figuring it was just anxiety, or nocebo, or a temporarily overactive imagination, or whatever. Nothing to worry about, especially since that had to be way too brief an exposure to cause problems.

  But when I woke in the middle of the night to pee, I had trouble walking.

  This time, the nocebo effect didn’t seem like such a compelling explanation. I’d felt totally relaxed by the time I’d gone to bed, not feeling concerned about my strange little reaction at all. And I’d been sleeping soundly.

  Oh my god, this really may be true!

  I fired off another round of e-mails to my friends: “Holy crap! . . . I keep thinking that this won’t pan out, or it will be so subtle I won’t be sure. But this ain’t subtle. I guess I’m turning into one of those crazy moldie people!”

  Over the next week, I tested the hypothesis further. I spent 10 minutes in my trailers, and although they smelled a bit musty after being shut up for weeks, I felt no unusual physical sensations. Oh man, I thought. Here we go. This looked so promising, but now it’s going to fall apart. Less than two hours later, though, I couldn’t walk. And again, taking a shower immediately made me feel almost entirely better.

  It wasn’t just the trailers that did me in either. Sitting in a restaurant two days later, I felt as though I were gradually turning to stone. I gimped out of the building, sat in the fresh air, and within minutes was able to walk fine, though I still felt somewhat crappy. Fresh air clearly wasn’t as powerful as a shower and change of clothes.

  Another day, I needed some papers from the trailers, so I asked a friend to get them for me and I took them to Kinko’s to copy. I had a whisper of a bad feeling when I held the papers, but I dismissed it as paranoia. Within an hour, I was crippled, and yet again, a shower restored me instantly. That’s freaky. I thought back to Erik’s story about his sergeant collapsing from Erik’s peanut breath because of allergies and his claim that mold operates similarly, with tiny quantities being enough to do in the susceptible. Maybe Crazy Erik was right.

  My car offered further confirmation. I tested it in the hope that I could return Gary’s little Impreza to him. Though I felt ridiculous as I sat in it—of course it’s fine!—I could barely get out after five minutes and staggered away.

  All of this felt persuasive, but I longed for evidence that was more rigorous. I started thinking about how I could design a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind experiment: I could, say, expose myself to a bunch of washcloths, half of which had been in a moldy building and half of which hadn’t, to see if I could distinguish them. But such an experiment seemed too complicated to take on at the moment, and I kept it as a possibility for the future. For the moment, I just cultivated my skepticism, figuring that if mold wasn’t truly the problem, over time I’d see evidence against it—as long as I didn’t let myself become too gullible.

  I pursued one more avenue for rigorous evidence. Ritchie Shoemaker, the crusading mold doctor whose book I’d found so impenetrable, had a set of blood tests he recommended that he claimed offered strong evidence about whether you were sickened by mold. Given that many of his claims in his book had struck me as scientific word soup, I was doubtful about the significance of the tests, but hey, they were covered by my health insurance, so what the heck. And indeed, my results did broadly fit with Shoemaker’s predictions for someone with mold illness.

  Interesting, I thought, but I still don’t trust this guy. I’m more persuaded by my own reactions.

  My various tests increased my confidence. When I was sitting in a café a week after I got back from Death Valley and found myself feeling so awful I could barely keep my head up, I didn’t hesitate—time to get out.

  I sat outside, addled and achy, trying to figure out what to do next. Leaving had helped, but I still felt fairly terrible. I decided to try driving out to my land to see if the rumor I’d heard was right and the outside air on my land was indeed better for me than in town.

  I sat well away from the trailers with Frances, bundled up and soaking in the sunshine. After about an hour, I felt quite a lot better. Maybe the moldies are right again. A familiar skeptical whisper piped up, though: It could just be from the rest. It might have nothing to do with the air or with mold.

  After another hour, I thought, Wow, I really do feel better! I decided to try taking Frances for a bit of a walk. We’ll just stroll up the arroyo a tiny bit. Don’t want to overdo it.

  I ambled while Frances screeched up and down the hillside. I cringed as she careened toward trees, her strong, lithe body dodging them at the last possible moment. With every step, I assessed my body’s state: Do I need to turn around now? Now?

  I treasured each familiar detail in the arroyo; the smooth, gray, dolphin-shaped rock with the alabaster intrusion; the twisting, wind-scoured dead juniper branch; the graceful curves the water had traced in the sand. I especially delighted to see tiny grasses growing in dirt that had accumulated behind dead branches I had put across the drainage years before, in an effort to slow the water down. A hundred years ago, these hills had all been covered with grass that had stabilized the earth and kept these arroyos from scarring the landscape, but too many sheep and cows had nibbled the grass away. Each new blade felt like a tiny healing.

  I was astonished to reach the saddle at the top of the arroyo—I hadn’t imagined I would walk nearly so far, a good half mile of climbing. You should really stop here, I thought, but my body felt strong and fluid, and I couldn’t help myself: I turned left and started tromping up the ridgeline. I’ll turn back at that next tree, I thought. And then when I got there, Maybe that tree there instead.

  Soon I found myself at the top of the 350-foot hill behind my house.

  My breath caught in my chest, as if it couldn’t decide whether to be a sob or a laugh or a whoop. I hadn’t been able to climb that hill for a year and a half. This can’t be real, I thought. This can’t be real.

  To my right, the Nambe reservoir dam cut a sharp, curved line across the land. In front of it, the mud-hill barrancas undulated and crinkled. Snow gleamed on the peaks of the Jemez across the valley, and to the left, the Sandias humped up like a breaching whale. Even further to the left, the buildings of Santa Fe dotted the plain. Frances ran up to me and I pulled her in, burying my face in her neck as I said, It’s true, it’s true, it’s true! But she backed away, confused by my intensity. I told her to go play, and I looked around greedily, wiping the tears from my eyes.

  I pulled out my phone, snapped a picture, and e-mailed it to a bunch of my friends, with the subject line: “Oh. My. God.”

  When I had no payback for my exercise the next day, my worries about whether the mold hypothesis was true or not started feeling feeble. If this is the placebo effect, I thought, it’s good enough for me.

  Instead, I started fanta
sizing about what I might be capable of now. Could I hike to the waterfall? Could I even start running again? I didn’t want to wonder and test and assess anymore—I wanted to put my energy into getting better.

  I knew I didn’t have the kind of evidence I’d publish in Science, but I wasn’t trying to prove any scientific theory. I was just trying to manage my own little life. And something incredible had happened on that hike, something incredible enough to whoosh away my doubts. If I was wrong about this mold thing, I’d figure it out soon enough when things stopped making sense. For now, I had enough evidence to place my own bets. I was finally all in on the mold theory.

  What that meant for my future still wasn’t clear, though. For one thing, I didn’t know whether I’d be able to live in the house I’d built. Perhaps some water had found its way into the bales and caused some rot, or perhaps a tenant had carried some nasty toxin in with their stuff. I felt okay in the house for short periods, and my tenant even let me sleep in the house one night, which to my enormous relief seemed to go fine. But one night wasn’t enough to be sure—for that, I had to be there longer, after my tenant left in three weeks. Then I’d know whether it was time to shop for a Vanagon or to settle down in Santa Fe.

  In the meantime, I focused on practicalities: I was homeless, I needed to buy a car, my computer had died just before I left for Death Valley, I had very few clothes, and even if I had more, I had no place to put them.

  Unwilling to drop a couple thousand dollars on a new Mac, I bought a used one. My moldie friends had warned that computers could pick up contamination and then spray it all around when their fans turned on, but that struck me as unlikely. I felt torn—on the one hand, the moldies had been dramatically right about improbable things in the past, but on the other, fear ruled the lives of many of them as they endlessly ran from exposures. Accepting that the mold theory was broadly true didn’t mean that everything that any moldie had ever imagined affected them would necessarily affect me too—after all, I hadn’t developed chemical sensitivities as predicted (at least not so far! I thought, crossing my fingers). I didn’t want to let mere rumors rule my life.

  Each time I used the computer I bought, though, I felt slightly off afterward, and over the next few days, I found myself feeling worse overall: My back hurt, my eyes swelled, I felt exhausted. I stopped using the computer and felt better. I’m getting rid of this computer. Maybe I’m being ridiculous, but ridiculous is better than sick. The fellow I bought the computer from took it back, though he clearly thought my explanation about mold sounded crazy. I could hardly argue with him on that score. I bought the least expensive new MacBook Air I could find, and I had no problems with it.

  Another practical problem was money. If I had to replace everything I owned, the $10,000 Lenny had given me wasn’t going to last long. And from what I’d read from my moldie friends, learning to avoid mold was likely to take most of my attention for some months, so I probably wasn’t going to be earning much money anytime soon.

  My thoughts went to Geoff’s family, who had treated me with extraordinary generosity and love throughout our relationship. After Geoff and I split up, he had lived at home for several years while doctors continued to fiddle with his medications and he worked to rebuild his life, shielded by his family from destitution or abandonment. We talked occasionally, so I knew that he now had an excellent job and seemed basically content with his life, though his illness had cost him dearly. Maybe his parents would be willing to help me like they helped him—not as much, of course, but maybe some.

  I e-mailed Geoff to ask what he thought, and he volunteered to ask them for me. I, of course, worried that they might find my asking for money outrageous when I’d left their son, and I also worried that his dad, a transplant surgeon, might find my mold theory dopey and ridiculous. But in fact, Geoff’s dad e-mailed within a few hours, letting me know that they would be happy to send me $2,000 a month for as long as I needed it and they could afford it. He also said he had a colleague at the medical school who was convinced she’d recovered from a similar illness by eating lots of kale, and “personally, I find a bad effect of mold much more likely than a miraculous healing effect of kale.” He told me that Geoff’s mother insisted that I consider it a gift, not a loan, and ended his e-mail by saying, “You are still a daughter-in-law in our accounting of family members.”

  I bawled. My muscle fibers seemed to loosen a couple of ratchets as the relief flooded through me. At the same time, all the grief at my loss of them, grief I couldn’t let myself feel at the time, poured in. I reread his last sentence over and over, and I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

  I decided I was ready to get rid of all the stuff in my trailers. I worried that if I didn’t, I might walk past the trailers and get small exposures to “ick,” the (purported) toxin endemic to Berkeley. I also hoped that once I removed my belongings, the trailers would prove to be no moldier than many buildings in town. Then they would be safe enough for a non-moldie to live in, and I could rent them out for some income.

  The symbolism of getting rid of everything and starting over seemed almost embarrassingly crude. Life seemed to be making a little joke for me, as it had with my going to Death Valley of all places. If my life were a novel I was editing, I would scratch those things out, saying, “Be a little more subtle, please.”

  I bought a hooded white Tyvek suit like the ones asbestos removal workers wear, along with a respirator that made me look like an insect, rubber gloves, goggles, and booties. In the full getup, I felt like a cross between a clown and Darth Vader. I walked into the trailers cautiously, as if waiting for a lightning bolt of mold to strike me from the heavens. I tentatively concluded that I was okay.

  A friend helped me go through everything. Just a few months before, I’d paid to have all this carefully collected stuff brought out from Berkeley. Now, though, it was almost all destined for Goodwill. I figured I’d store a few things that were really meaningful in the hope that I might be able to tolerate them years down the line, but everything else was a goner. Out went the down pillow I’d had since I was a teenager, its cover yellow with age; my copy of Osler’s Web, the history of chronic fatigue syndrome that had so horrified me; food and toiletries and printer paper and clothes. I kept the sweater I’d knitted for my mother, with nearly 60 different yarns in it, in shades of black and silver to match her hair. I also kept a wooden mask William and I had bought together in South Africa, its empty eyes peering through ropes that hung like dreadlocks from above its forehead.

  After a couple of hours, I felt as if I were the tin man in the rain, my joints gradually rusting shut. I was a bit shocked that being in the trailers did me in even through this whole getup. I pulled off my protective gear, sat outside, and breathed the fresh air. An invisible oil can seemed to go to work, restoring my mobility. I figured I’d taken enough of a hit for one day and quit, skedaddling back to George’s house to shower and change.

  The next day, I felt like crap and took the day off, lolling about stuporously. Each day I felt capable, I suited up again. I mostly stayed outside the trailers while my friend brought me stuff to sort outside, but still, after a couple of hours I rusted to a halt. Getting crippled each day made getting rid of everything I owned surprisingly straightforward, because it felt so apparent that my stuff was doing me in. Plus, every few days, I walked up the hill behind my house again, and my future beckoned. A pair of blue jeans or a tchotchke or some books couldn’t compare.

  The only exception I made was for objects that were only metal, glass, or ceramic. I had been told that those materials didn’t seem to absorb toxins the way others could. So I scrubbed my glasses and pots and plates and cutlery and set them aside to use, well, once I had somewhere to use them. I was particularly pleased to keep those things, since they had mostly come from my mother. The knives were the Henckels I’d bought her for Christmas when I was 15, and she had received the pots as wedding presents.

  Every once in a while, I got stuck, like when I pi
cked up my fanny pack: This is the perfect fanny pack! If I get rid of this fanny pack, I’ll just have to go buy another one exactly like it, and that’s ridiculous! Surely there is some way of saving this. Wouldn’t it be okay if I just washed it? I knew my moldie friends would say no to that—any fabric so deeply steeped in my personal kryptonite, ick, wasn’t worth saving, they’d say.

  Suddenly, I snapped to: It was just a fanny pack. It was nothing compared to my health. I tossed it in a Goodwill box and moved on.

  One day soon after I finished clearing out the trailers, I walked up the trail along the stream. I greeted all the familiar spots I hadn’t been able to go to in so long: the ponderosa grove with lush willows on one side and cholla cactus on the other; a high log bridge I used to run across; the stream bank where Frances loved to squish her toes in the silt. The north-facing slopes were snowy, and the south-facing ones were dry and sunny.

  My body carried me happily up the trail nearly two miles, where I entered a narrow canyon with cliffs on either side. The first time I’d come here was when I was a teenager, and the entrance to the canyon had been so grown over that I’d missed it. I’d climbed up up up with the main trail, peered over the edge of the cliff, and glimpsed a waterfall. There’s got to be some way to get there, I’d thought, so I backtracked and bushwhacked my way to a tiny trail that crossed and recrossed the stream. In a couple of places, I had to make tricky leaps between rocks, but in the end, I was rewarded with a 20-foot waterfall that thundered and sprayed its grotto with mist. Since then, the forest service had cleared the trail and lots of people came to the waterfall on beautiful summer days, but it still felt like my personal treasure.

  Late winter ice now slicked over some of the rocks and made the tricky section of the trail even trickier. I felt like a goat as I leapt between them and made it dry-footed. Nice job, body!

  Even before I got to the waterfall, I could hear that its thunder was muffled: It was encased in ice. At its base, the column was a dozen feet around, narrowing at the top. Light sparkled among the fractal filigrees of ice, small columns filling in between bigger columns, and behind it, I could see the water flickering, the waterfall’s heartbeat.