keep breathing

who needs to interrupt a perfectly fine summer with a pulmonary vein ablation?! what a dumb idea. early fall is much better for heart surgery - every every every one knows that!

september 8th, i am thinking of you often. can't wait to see you.

faulty equipment

there's a metaphor in here somewhere. or a reason at least. we tell ourselves there is a reason for everything. or at least i do, being one who is is frustrated when things don't make sense on the surface.



june 30th has turned itself into july 2nd, as some piece of equipment meant to fix my wires has gone bad and needs fixing, in order to fix me.



my countdown is ruined! everyone will pray on the wrong day! it was supposed to all be over by july 2nd! i do not like this change in plans!



oh hush. get some sleep. have some wine. plant something.



counting down to july 2nd...

it's a wonderful life

my favorite part of my favorite movie is when george bailey realizes he is alive after all, and screams his gratefulness, he can't wait to get home. problems are still tucked tight in his belt (along with zu zu's petals), but the important thing is, he has not missed out on having his life touched by so many, and likewise, he sees the way he has touched theirs.

dear george. there he is with his arm around mary in the living room, as friends and angels come forward one at a time, tossing dollar bills into the basket on the wrapping table, a flood of goodness that rose out of goodness.

i feel like that. all of your good wishes are pouring out of you and into me, into the creaky laundry basket that holds my heart, and i feel like i can't wait to get on with what is important, and take you all with me.

did you just hear a bell ring?

oh, everything will be fine!

as lady barbara would say, "next week at this time it will ALL be over!" she said that about holidays, visits, surgeries, weddings, graduations, and any other event that is circled in red on the calendar. events that we plan for, look forward to, and dream about; as well as events we worry about, dread, lose sleep over. i here her voice in this anxious mind of mine, that next week at this time it will all be over.

i am touched by so many who are thinking good thoughts and tell me they will pray for me (note: i know some of you aren't prayers, so cut that out). but at the same time, the fiesty impossible me thinks to herself

"quit it! you don't know that it will be fine! what if i have a stroke on the table? or bleed out? or they nick the back of my throat with that electrode such that i can never breathe or swallow comfortably again?!" these are all possibilities. remote, but stated, and therefore, real.

baby brat, worry wart, negative nellie -- say what you need to say, call it like you see it, what a grumpus. this is all true, all these words describe me this day. i embrace my gloominess, at least for today.

meanwhile, please keep telling me that everything will be fine.

because next week at this time it will all be over.

dizzy on purpose

when i was less than 10 my favorite summer thing to do was to throw my head back, arms out wide and spin and spin and twirl and twirl so fast and long, until i was so dizzy i would fall down. spread out flat on the ground i felt the surging waves of spin washing over me, around and around. it made me laugh when i saw the grass in the sky and the sky under my toes, lying there on that perfect lawn. i loved being dizzy when i was less than 10.

these days i am dizzy again. the sky is down and the ground is up and the horizon is never straight ahead, more likely behind. i can't help looking back at it and i hope that soon i will be able to see that same horizon in front of me, above my head as it sketches out my dreams. i wish to see all that i am walking towards. straight ahead, up high and very still, but for the breeze.

but dizzy is me. i haven't been spinning on purpose to feel this way-- instead i was plucked out of my comfortable safe place - the fragrant backyard of my life. i was dropped in the middle of a turn table - the kind that went missing in the late 80's. i am lying here spinning around in the middle of a record album, and once in a while i grab the spindle in the middle and i touch it just to know that there is a center somewhere.

it was a sunny afternoon today. a bench in the shade and lounging poses provided the perfect front row for admiring red wing blackbirds and baby ducks and fuzzy goslings. kids with ice cream and people walking their dogs. each and all with their own dance steps, a perfectly choreographed thursday afternoon.

why was i here and what are we celebrating? do tell me because i am spinning so fast. the day is approaching and i am not sure which end is up. so tell me why i have been invited to this shady spot on this lovely day...i am not dizzy on purpose like when i was small, but dizzy anyway, afterall.

we are celebrating just being here, just being here, they said.

and dizzy as i am, that is the perfect answer.

save the peas!

at 10:00 last night i was at my desk writing down some special thoughts, with a glass of wine and a long smoke. suddenly the wind came up, dark and insistent, lifting the leaves on the trees like marilyn monroe's skirt when she posed on that vent in the 7 year itch. moments later mike was behind me, sleepy but wide awake and said, "i woke up just in time for the storm!"

we do enjoy sitting on the porch during a good storm.

and then a loud pop and then a crash that bellowed it's way between all of our houses and lawns and then

silence.

the lights went out and the ceiling fans took a final lap. the pattering sounds of the fountains went missing. darkness. but we who are lovers of candlelight took quick to our tasks - lighting oil lamps, collecting candles, pouring wine.

when morning came all was still and quiet and while supreme quiet is what some look for in the country, here in south minneapolis it is a spooky distraction.

the two lovers up the street were scratching their heads, accepting hugs from friends and moms and dads, and pulling out still -cold beers as they watched the men with tanned arms wield chain saws as they bounced up and down on cherry pickers. clear the trees, raise the power lines. "this will take quite a while ," the men from excel energy told us.

meanwhile, my favorite handyman got an idea. one hour later there was a rented generator in the back yard, and all of our freezers and refrigerators were humming. no loss of groceries from the frozen larders in this neighborhood. thirty minutes after that, mike was watching the twins on tv with a cold glass of wine and i was checking my email. extension cords rule.

not that we don't embrace an opportunity to celebrate the pioneer spirit, mind you, but as mike said over cocktails:

"the technology exists honey, don't be afraid to use it."

love always

the other night i had a dream about the first person i ever truly loved. his name was donny and he was my best friend's big brother. i was a sophmore and he was a senior and he was the drum major and one beautiful fall afternoon when i saw him marching at half-time i got a sick feeling when i realized how in love i was, and how i may never have him. he was very tall, platinum blond hair and blue eyes, a beautiful laugh and a deep bass voice. i did finally get my chance, and we were together for a little while, and suddenly he was gone, never calling me again. it hurt for so many years.

in the dream he was back and i didn't understand why after all these years, why now do you wish to love me, especially since i know now that you are gay? but there is a little shadow of love for him that i cherish still and always will. can't help it.

i wonder where love goes when we are done with it. for me, it doesn't goe anywhere, it stays tucked in a corner, but it never leaves. all the bad things that may infect or break it - those things fade and scar over, but the love never does, it stays little and small and safe, somewhere deep inside my heart.

a couple of weeks ago i sent a note to someone who was my best friend for many years. we so loved each other, but she is gone, too and i don't know why -- and with heart surgery on the horizon, i wanted to know. so i told her i missed her and how much i loved her and always had and always will and was hoping to make amends, but instead she wrote back saying she was sure the surgery would go well and by the way she has adopted 2 cats. where did her love for me go? i will never know. it seems to have left her heart, and i wonder how that can be when we felt it so strongly for so longly back then.

as you know, i think a lot about my heart these days, not only about how it is beating and what will happen when something warm and burning is poked into the center of it to heal the crazy beats and anxious rhythms. but i also have been examining every corner of it, and visiting all the loves that are small and quiet, forever asleep but not forgotten. and then i think about all the other loves, the big ones - center stage, bright and embracing, the ones that will never grow smaller, only stronger.

and i hope with all of that love in there, that dr. gorman can find the room he needs for that catheter to burn my wires. hope he doesn't burn anything he oughtn't.

turns out it is pretty crowded in there.

it's cold in there

when laurie the nurse came out and picked up the papers in the tray where they keep papers for whoever is up next, i whispered "i hope she isn't mine, i've had her before and she's mean."

"linda?" she said in a pleasant voice.
(note to self, there are lots of stories about various linda's on this site. hmm)

she was short and a little plump and had olive skin and gorgeous shiny black hair and smiling eyes and i was totally wrong about her. the mean lady must have been someone else or if this was the same woman, this one, laurie, had had a bad day that time in early december when she took my blood. whoever that was had been hard on the needle when she stabbed my poor aching veins. and veins were hard to find at that time anyway, since both of my arms were so bruised and swollen from hospital iv's and blood tests on the hour and so many tubes. plus whoever-that-was was not a chatter. customer service points are deducted from non-chatters in my book.

this person, this day, this lovely laurie, was kind and gentle and patient as she walked me back to the changing room.

"you better put some scrubs on because you have a metal accent on your pants (i thought that was an elegant word to use for a string hole in a pair of sweats). and honey you can keep that sports bra on but the t shirt has to go. here's a gown (why do they call them gowns? this is not a prom or wedding or a ball or even close), and sweetie, put these socks on, it's really cold in there."

all suited up.

the next nice person was pam and she came to get me and said "we" needed to put an iv in first, before we "get started", because "we" needed to inject a dye into my heart so "we" can see all the wires in there and get good pictures for when they do the surgery. she said i may experience an odd taste and sure enough, there was sulfur on my tongue for just a moment.

time to "go in there", and laurie was right, it was very cold in there.

there it was. a gigantic tomb, white and green, with red blinking lights. it looked at me and smacked it's lips and with clanks and beeps, it smiled as it waited to inhale me. clank clank. come here, my pretty.

i was claustophic and told them so but they said "it won't take long and we will give you headphones so you can listen to music and we will talk you through it."

they offered to put a washcloth over my eyes, said it would calm me and at first i said no, but the nice young gay man said, "honey, you really don't want to be looking around in there, you won't like it. really."

with earphones on my head and a plastic rack of some sort tied tightly to my own rack (they needed extra slack for me, haha), feet all cozy in tan socks with rubber bottoms, i heard them say "you're going in."

in i went, way in. deep inside the clanky cave. i peeked around the edges of the washcloth just once and briefly, and they were right - i didn't want to look around this place. odd, but the reason i was here was to avoid putting me in a similar container later on, but that one would be fashioned from wood.

from time to time the plastic rack got hot on my chest and i when the nice gay man in the control booth said "you'll feel an injection now" i felt cool water being poured all over my left hand.

more beeps and clanks and groans and "breathe in breathe out now hold" and funny but the song i heard was

"all i can do is keep breathing...all that i know is i'm breathing...all we can do is keep breathing..."

by the way, i kept the socks.

and the scrubs, too.

it's going to be nice tomorrow

"amazing forecaster"! "predicts the weather 8 to 24 hours in advance"!
*accurate thermometer * genuine walnut * hand painted * made in usa *

it's a fascinating little gadget that was made in the 60's i guess, and in addition to what you just read, this little weather forecaster is as cute as a bug's ear. it is a tiny cottage - the one where the witch lives - deep in the dark cool spooky forest - you remember it, i know you do. when the children come close to the cottage (tired, hungry and lost), the genuine walnut turns into cookies and cake, hansel and gretel ar so desperately hungry so they take a bite...and then the witch comes out, and well you know what happens next.

it hangs on the wall in a "cool airy spot", and when the weather forecast is for rain and clouds, the witch comes out to the front porch and the children hide inside, but when a fair day is coming, the children plan their escape and step out into the sunlight and the witch goes back to her inside dreary. if you stoop down and look inside, you will see a fire in the fireplace, a yowling black cat with a scraggly arched back, an owl perched on the mantel and a framed picture on the wall of the witch flying across the moon on her broomstick (self portrait).

it works. when storms were rolling in but still miles away last weekend, the witch was out front and center, but today, a perfectly perfect sunny and breezy day, the children have come out to play.

what a charming way to predict the weather. as for me i'm feeling calm today, as the big day comes closer, and i am normally so anxious, but today is a perfect day, with perfect thoughts of all being well and in spite of all the pokes and electrodes, the children are saying come out and play.

and, according to the children, it's going to be nice tomorrow, too.

close to home

her name is linda and she is 40 years old. she is orginally from south america and i'm not sure how she got here, but she lives in a place barely bigger than she is and her head is kind of flat. it's hard to see her features because her complexion is somewhat spiny and everytime i see her i wonder if she is happy or at least content, and today i found out she is both of those things even though she doesn't smile much.

linda is a turtle. a really big turtle. for more than twenty years i've visited linda at my favorite fish store, and there she is, stuffed in a corner of her very small tank. i asked the guy today why such a small home for dear linda? he said "in the wild, she would only move about 30 - 100 feet per year. she doesn't really need much space."

30 to 100 feet per year? how about if we all tried that -- as little movement as possible. you can move around in place all you want, but in terms of home, find a place that suits you and stick to it. stay near it, stay in it, and don't ever leave it or if you do don't go far. would that feel limiting and confining, or would it just feel safe and perfect? everything you need is right within reach and no need to go off looking for things that, if they aren't right in front of you, maybe you don't need them anyway. of course, the trick is to find a home that suits you perfectly.

perfectly.

having said all that, linda is getting a new home. a 6 x 10 tank that just arrived and they haven't even gotten it out of the box yet. but after 40 years she deserves to stretch out a little, that's what the fishguy said.

stay close to home, but spread out a little.

smart linda.