weighing in
I just finished “Saltwater Buddha”, exactly a week after it arrived last Friday, where I started it out on the small patio, in my favorite chair there. I believe an hour before I did my (Friday afternoon) weigh-in. Time flies. It was the day after seeing the Bruce Willis ‘aphasia’ news and two days before talking with Andy and Jamie on Cape Cod about maybe dying on their couch. Since then I’ve had a complete neurological exam, a wide blood panel, and EKG, a carotid arteries ultrasound, and – coming in a few hours – a cat scan. The doctor’s office called yesterday after I was back from the ultrasound and said, “Forget the cat scan, do an MRI.” And I said, “I’m doing the cat scan, forget the MRI.” I’m more of a cat person, actually, and if it makes me something of an idiot passing on a neurologist’s advice, so be it.
Chiming in to me here will change nothing. There’s other stuff to say, about not having a ride to certain of these procedures, some involving sedation (includes colonoscopy in the wings), but I feel done saying it. Like when kids charge in from a summer’s afternoon’s hard play and ask Mom what’s for dinner and Mom says, “Catch as catch can.” It’s exactly like that.
It feels like last Friday afternoon’s weigh-in was just a few hours ago. Time flies. Rock around the clock. Me, still here, not giving a damn about my bad reputation. Since last Friday’s time of beginning the book and the weigh-in (148.0) I’ve stumbled upon, on YouTube, Billy Joel’s version of Freddie Scott’s “Hey Girl”. I’ve played it a bunch of times, including on my phone out on walks, and I’ve sobbed a few of those times. It’s quite relevant in my life, and almost exactly a year to the day Susan and I sat in the studio and she said she wanted a divorce. It (“Hey Girl”) remains the way I feel. Current. Like last Friday’s weigh-in.
Yesterday morning I was reading a Zen Koan, the gist of which was/is we are both phenomenal and essential. We change always. Yet our essence is timeless. I’m the exact human writing this as the kid in right field in the first little league game of the year, falling down and still making the catch. I just didn’t know the word colonoscopy then. The only cat was back home, down High Street, sleeping on the easy chair. This doesn’t feel like heavy stuff to me, not really. Life in the big city we used to say. My boys (my sons) are good. I feel, truthfully, even better than good. I don’t know how Susan is because she closed the door tight – all the way. I did, though, see on Facebook yesterday that she found a hummingbird’s nest in her back yard. Which, knowing her, brought delight. So that’s cool.
I don’t think what I have to say means all that much. But, I am open to the possibility that it does. Humans matter. How I feel this morning is different from last Friday. And it’s still me, feeling it, still me singing The Beach Boys on the High Street front lawn, circa 1964. I get around.
I’ll be damned if I have more to say than that.