More and more I can let my heart stay soft and open
even in the face of fear and discomfort
in the interest of my own well being
The moon was half a week away from full and in Pisces when I arrived at the hospital just after dawn yesterday. Watery, emotional, poetic Pisces. The moon sign of Renoir, one of my favorite painters, and Michelangelo, whose David I stood mesmerized in front of, snapping picture after picture from every angle possible, for what seemed like hours in Florence that day with my youngest daughter.
I want to take photographs of yesterday. The whole of it, from start to finish, from every perspective possible, just like David. I want to capture the experience, and the details, the essence: The arrival. The wait. The gown. The hideous bright red one-size-fits-all socks that couldn't keep a foot warm if they wanted to. The expansiveness, the curiosity, the wonder. The deep relaxation of Secret Garden playing through my big headphones as I waited for my turn. My head being lowered, being wheeled into the OR, giant bright lights, the competency, the mask, the shocking amnesia. The waking, from the deepest sleep I've ever known, in pain but completely free of fear, devoid of even the tiniest hint of disquiet.
I want to put my new iPhone up to it all, with its wide-angle lens, and snap away. Bold color, clear focus, immaculate depth of field.
But how really do you capture a miracle?
Or for that matter, all that led to it? The childhood hospitalizations and medical traumas that grew into severe complex PTSD. How innate innocence and freedom were swapped out for anxiety and terror, and by five years old, horrifying, heart wrenching intrusive thoughts and images that only after sixty years would be understood as a rare form of OCD. The panic as an adult at the thought of doctors, medical test, hospitals. The awful gallbladder attacks that wouldn't stop no matter, by the end of five years, how little fat and then food I consumed; my life growing smaller and more dependent by their randomness, insidiousness, helplessness; a fateful trip to the ER.
I want to capture the people, kind and compassionate to a person. Pre-op nurse Harita who called me sweetheart and rubbed my shoulder. Wonderful nurse anesthesiologist Lori. Sweet surgeon, Dr. Nyugen, and anesthesiologist Dr. Rahn, whose warm eyes and hands held my own, who had me laughing so unexpectedly out loud, who made me remember in an instant the warm, joyous spirit that I am, right there, in the middle of pre-op, nakedly vulnerable. And Sally, within arms length as I woke, sincere, empathetic, thanking me for my kindness as I dressed, still groggy, to go home.
Two months before the surgery I re-watched a video I had come across a couple of years before of a woman, a doctor, that I knew of from the conscious dance class I attended, dancing in the OR before her cancer surgery. Tears streamed down my own face as Beyonce blared from the small boom box, and this woman, Deborah, began to move her body like smooth liquid; eyes closed, deep peace, glorious serenity, and bliss plastered across her soft features. And then, her entire team joining her, infusing that sterile room with the most heart opening unmitigated joy possible.
How do you capture that which is a process, that which happens invisibly? Like fall, when suddenly, out of nowhere it seems, there are more yellow leaves than green when you walk by the creek though you've walked there nearly every day for the past month in preparation. Then one day, about a week out, you watch as a great white heron takes off from the water, her powerful wings gracefully lifting her, propelling her up the channel, her beautiful light reflected in the blue, before she disappears into the tree cover, and you stop, not quite believing the elegance of what you have just seen, or the joyousness you realize you are feeling, utterly, have been feeling, which you now see has grown with each week and day and step, and nowhere can you find anything that even begins to resemble fear, it's just gone, poof, like a magic trick, like the green of the leaves that are now yellow.
Yesterday morning I woke early, went downstairs, turned on Pandora and danced my own little dance, body moving in its staccato way, then whirling and twirling, arms reaching; this body, my body, oldest companion, vehicle for all experience, then got dressed and waited for my ex-husband to pick me up and we drove to the hospital in relaxed, companionable silence as the sun rose over the hills and the new day quietly began.
I want to put my new iPhone up to it all, with its wide-angle lens, and snap away. Bold color, clear focus, immaculate depth of field.
But how really do you capture a miracle?
Or for that matter, all that led to it? The childhood hospitalizations and medical traumas that grew into severe complex PTSD. How innate innocence and freedom were swapped out for anxiety and terror, and by five years old, horrifying, heart wrenching intrusive thoughts and images that only after sixty years would be understood as a rare form of OCD. The panic as an adult at the thought of doctors, medical test, hospitals. The awful gallbladder attacks that wouldn't stop no matter, by the end of five years, how little fat and then food I consumed; my life growing smaller and more dependent by their randomness, insidiousness, helplessness; a fateful trip to the ER.
I want to capture the people, kind and compassionate to a person. Pre-op nurse Harita who called me sweetheart and rubbed my shoulder. Wonderful nurse anesthesiologist Lori. Sweet surgeon, Dr. Nyugen, and anesthesiologist Dr. Rahn, whose warm eyes and hands held my own, who had me laughing so unexpectedly out loud, who made me remember in an instant the warm, joyous spirit that I am, right there, in the middle of pre-op, nakedly vulnerable. And Sally, within arms length as I woke, sincere, empathetic, thanking me for my kindness as I dressed, still groggy, to go home.
Two months before the surgery I re-watched a video I had come across a couple of years before of a woman, a doctor, that I knew of from the conscious dance class I attended, dancing in the OR before her cancer surgery. Tears streamed down my own face as Beyonce blared from the small boom box, and this woman, Deborah, began to move her body like smooth liquid; eyes closed, deep peace, glorious serenity, and bliss plastered across her soft features. And then, her entire team joining her, infusing that sterile room with the most heart opening unmitigated joy possible.
How do you capture that which is a process, that which happens invisibly? Like fall, when suddenly, out of nowhere it seems, there are more yellow leaves than green when you walk by the creek though you've walked there nearly every day for the past month in preparation. Then one day, about a week out, you watch as a great white heron takes off from the water, her powerful wings gracefully lifting her, propelling her up the channel, her beautiful light reflected in the blue, before she disappears into the tree cover, and you stop, not quite believing the elegance of what you have just seen, or the joyousness you realize you are feeling, utterly, have been feeling, which you now see has grown with each week and day and step, and nowhere can you find anything that even begins to resemble fear, it's just gone, poof, like a magic trick, like the green of the leaves that are now yellow.
Yesterday morning I woke early, went downstairs, turned on Pandora and danced my own little dance, body moving in its staccato way, then whirling and twirling, arms reaching; this body, my body, oldest companion, vehicle for all experience, then got dressed and waited for my ex-husband to pick me up and we drove to the hospital in relaxed, companionable silence as the sun rose over the hills and the new day quietly began.
