Soft Tissue Damage: Part II

The heart is soft I think. I have never touched one, but when I see one lifted from a bloody chest in some television medical drama, or in a sketch or photo, it is clear that the heart lacks architecture. It appears more sculpted than engineered, more formed than constructed. But the heart is a beautiful object in that it is balanced: compact yet expansive, surprisingly small yet massive when held in the palm. It is central and yet carried everywhere in our thoughts, in language, and of course in our bodies.

From my earliest biology lessons I remember that the heart is an involuntary muscle, it is cradled in the lungs, it is hidden behind a cage of bones. Exercised by ordinary means as I breathe, it assumes in its nature my will to live. Perhaps because it is hidden we feel it is a safe place to store our deepest desires and concerns. We remove the truth of how-I-really-feel to the sanctuary of our heart, and trust it to the unnamable, autonomous self that we hardly know and only tentatively acknowledge. We trust the heart to do the work that the mind cannot manage. The incessant command to live is left to the heart, balanced by the impossible task of guiding us through love and loss.

Foolishly we trust the heart in the same way that we are prone to trust immutable gods or incontrovertible truths. Our personal histories prove over and over that our hearts are as untrustworthy as any God or Truth and will lead us into painful and inescapable circumstances. We have no proof of the heart’s interest in our happy preservation, still neither have we an alternative. Our secrets need sanctuary.

Yet this temple is no cathedral. There are no buttresses, no arches to hold back the weight of the sky. The heart is a fragile place. We misspeak when we say it is broken–the heart has no bones. Rather the heart is susceptible to deep soft tissue damage that is not easily repaired. It does not calcify around a wound, it just keeps beating despite the bruising. With increasing hesitancy we go there—where else? We have no language for loving from the lungs, or from the stomach or from the liver. We love from the heart. Without it we lose our center, our faith, our life.

Soft Tissue Damage: Part I

For six years I have considered the recovery of my broken legs with awe. That they could be laid out by human hands, broken end to broken end, against a long skinny metal plate and then screwed to it, in the way one might brace a broken two-by-four. This is an effective method, as my most recent x-rays have proven. In my left leg one bone was left alone, one splintered end hovering above the other, stabilized by its steel plated neighbor. After a year there was still a dark shadow between the two narrow sticks of my fibula. But with no assistance other than my body’s desire for wholeness, it healed finally. The weight of my body met by the unforgiving ground pressed the two ends toward each other prompting the growing tissues to reach and knit together until there was strong calcification, new bone.

But every year, spring and fall, the area around the wounds swells and bruises and causes pain ranging from manageable to infuriating. I wrap it and ice it and pop pills like a champ, grumbling and complaining until it passes. But finally this year, fed up, I visited a surgeon and asked nicely for a fix. They took new x-rays and asked me to retell the story, asking the same questions: “How long were you under the tombstone? How heavy was it? How long was recovery?” Etc. Etc. And I was patient, reading my novel between visits from a nurse, a physical therapist and finally the surgeon.

“You sustained a crush injury.” He says plainly. “This was not just the breaking of bones. What you are likely experiencing is the outcome of severe, very severe, soft tissue damage.” – I blinked. “The bones are healed. They look great actually. Your surgeon did a great job and you couldn’t have asked for a better outcome where the fractures are concerned. But the damaged tissue is reacting to atmospheric pressure changes and causing you trouble. Take Ibuprofen, wrap it, ice it, work through it.”

After he leaves the room my eyes flood and I cough. How could I actually be surprised to learn that having a thousand pound stone fall on your legs does somewhat irreparable damage? Could I really be so naively optimistic at heart? Apparently so.

Soft tissue damage: damnit.

And this morning, before I was fully awake, I had the epiphany that while the structural elements around which my legs are built are fine, the soft stuff—the stuff you see and touch, the stuff that gives me shape and fullness—that is forever hurt. I can be depended on to stand, to run, to ski, bike, kick and climb. In the most intrinsic and basic ways I am functional and whole. But this wholeness is surrounded by tender flesh that cannot be entirely trusted. When the pressure builds and presses I will have to grit my teeth and push through, with patient confidence in changing weather.

For Milana on her 14th Birthday

Milana.

Here are five of my favorite things about you:

1. You think Tina Fey is funny for all the right reasons a girl should think she’s funny.

2. You are already questioning the wisdom of dating a musician

3. You are very sweet to animals and people who need someone to notice that they are hurting

4. Your humor is fearless

5. You sing

Here are five things I think you should know.

1. It is terrifying to be a girl and even more terrifying to be a woman. But in between the two is the most terrifying of all. Surviving this part is what gives you swagger, real swagger.

2. No one understands you. No one. You are a mystery, beautiful and dark. And the mystery that is you will only grow deeper with every friend and lover who believes they get you. Don’t expect them to understand, but don’t be afraid to expect them to love.

3. Sometimes being alone is the only way to make sense of other people and how they’ve hurt you. Don’t be afraid to be alone.

4. You will never have to face anything alone unless you choose to.

5. I love you, not just because you are my daughter, but because I’m pretty sure that loving you is one of the most exciting things I’ll ever do.

I know you think that because I am your mother I can’t possibly be objective about you. But here’s a little secret: you don’t want people to be objective about you. You want them to be hopelessly subjective. Love is subjective. Feel the love.

 

 

For Nathanael on his Birthday

Well. You’re fifteen today. I’m impressed – with us both.

You’re on a mountain bike today, which is fitting. I was riding a bike the day before you were born. A big green cruiser from the 1940s. It was a really cool bike that your dad found for me. I was really young, only six years older than you are now! Unfreakinbelievable!

I wish I had some really good advice for you, but the older you get the more I feel like my advice is silly. I partly feel that way because you are getting to the point where the things you face aren’t all that different from the things I face: how to love, who to love, what to do with your time, what to focus on, how to be disciplined and get things done! And frankly kid, I have so many more questions now than answers for you. I also tend to want to keep my advice to myself because I think you are pretty smart, wise even for your age, and what you’ll learn from the few mistakes you’re brave enough to make is going to be a lot more valuable than anything I can say today.

If I had a quarter for every time someone told me what a great kid you are, we could spend a week on pinball.

The list of things I want to give you is long, the list of things I want to protect you from is long, but the list of qualities that I see in you that will help you get what you want and deal with the hard stuff is longer than both put together. Those are qualities you were born with. I can’t take credit for them. They are yours and besides your family and friends, they are the most valuable thing you will ever “own”. I will always be here to remind you of what they are, anytime you need that.

Happy birthday Nathanael David. You are one of the best people I’ve ever known and I’m really happy to be your mom. Seriously.

For my favorite husband…

Once upon a time there was a man who loved his wife and his life with her so much that he changed. After years of struggling with himself, after years of her struggling with him, he changed. He took a good look at what he was doing with his time and how it was affecting his family. He took a good look at her and realized what a beautiful woman she was, and he adjusted his life to better accommodate the fact that he was in love, that he had commitments, that he had children. It was a beautiful thing.

This man loved his wife and his life with her so much that he stayed with her. Even after she took a much needed break and looked to herself and struggled through her own doubts and fears. He let her go just far enough away that she could reacquaint herself with her deeper desires, her deeper loves. But he stayed close and would not let her forget that she was what he wanted, that he loved her. It was a beautiful thing.

Without intending to, this man became an example to his community of what a man is capable of when he is not afraid to love a woman. He took risks, he was vulnerable, he was probably even afraid. But he demanded more from himself than even she demanded of him and this caused her to wonder at her own low expectations. It caused her to feel loved in a way that has become sadly unfamiliar to many of us. It caused her to feel loved unconditionally. It was a beautiful thing.

They have four boys—four beautiful strong passionate boys—and their future girlfriends and wives will be forever indebted to this man for showing his sons what love can be.

(Happy Birthday Shawn. I love you and your wife more than you’ll ever know. Thank you for the years of support. You’re the real thing. I’m so proud of you guys.)

For Blossom – Whazzzup Sexy Lady!

Soul sister! I want to sing backup in the soundtrack of your life!

Last year when I wrote your birthday message, I was gushing gooey poetry all over the place. But this year, I’ve got this need to shout.  I want everyone to know what a kick ass, totally solid, unbelievably beeeeeutiful woman you are. Like for REAL girl! Artist, dancer, lover, mama, writer, midwife, nurse, sister, friend!  And you’re barely half-way there.

Here you go again – another lap around the sun – another notch in the proverbial belt you keep letting out to make room for all that wisdom and love that fills you.

I am sending out a seriously whole-hearted birthday wish that every unfulfilled dream, every longing, every sweet craving that fills your deep tender heart is answered with the full force of this world’s generosity. I sincerely believe that if your dreams were realized the world would be a better place, we would ALL be better for it.

So, listen up everybody! Put your hands in the air – give it up for Blossom Bluesky – who has blessed us all with her lovely self. May we all learn to smile as wide, love as true, sing as sweet, party as hard and give as well as this one! Happy Birthday sister.

Meditations on the Break-up

There is no beginning of a break-up until you get to the end. Then you can look back and see where it all started. Don’t dwell on it.

The longer you were together, the more deluded you are about what being single means. You look in the mirror and think “I got this” and really, you don’t got it. What you got is another transition which, if you keep your wits and sense of humor, will make you a much wiser person.

Other people tell you what they really thought for all those years they told you how great they thought your relationship was. You don’t appreciate that. You kind of want to smack ‘em.

You recognize that there are things just as painful as the end of your relationship—like telling your parents about it. Then your parents tell you what they really thought before, during or after your relationship… and you kind of want to smack ‘em.

You figure out that the state doesn’t give a crap who has kids in the first place, but it sure as hell cares who gets them after a divorce!

You realize that your kids are stronger and smarter and better than you.

You discover that you are still curious and excited and motivated to change. That the energy you directed into your relationship can be used in other ways that are just as fulfilling. Don’t stop moving.

Eventually, you realize you want to fall in love again and really give yourself to someone. Hopefully, you do.

Love is good.

Lately my kids are distant and emotionally inaccessible. They’re adolescents, and it is completely understandable. But I’m not used to it yet and it has caused me to realize something really significant about love and parenting. There was a point where I chose to love my kids because I want intimate and meaningful relationships with them, not just because I am supposed to love them, or because they are cute and cuddly and do what I want.  I choose to love them by absorbing some of the pain that adolescence inflicts, by being ok with missing them, by still investing even as they make choices I don’t understand and can’t control, by accepting that their other relationships might occasionally and, eventually always, take priority over their relationship with me. I don’t love them this way because I have to, but because I want to.

I have seen a number of parents turn their backs on their adolescent or adult children, betraying the fact that the love a parent gives a child doesn’t have to be selfless or unconditional. Maybe it is easier to be selfless with my daughter than with my friends or with a lover, but how and to what extent I love without needing anything in return will always be a choice.

I suppose that I hope that loving them or anyone this way will teach them, or encourage them, to love in a similar way—consciously and meaningfully, for the sake of love itself.  But I think I have lived long enough to know that regardless of how our parents loved us, we all have to make choices about who, when and how much to love. Plenty of people who were loved well as children make a choice to disengage from the emotional, physical and spiritual acts of intimacy that we call love. I hope my kids don’t, for their sake, for our sake. Love is good. I don’t know what I’d do without it.

The One Necessity

“I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.” – Annie Dillard

This is good advice. And if I were to take it, then I would grasp the wilder places that people forget and I would let them take me anywhere.

Here’s what I learned: if I want the river I have to go to it. It won’t ignore my lazy choices and come rolling through my front yard. I have to find it, go to it and get in. Finding a river in Oregon or Colorado, the two places I’ve called home, is not hard. Getting there is not hard. Remembering that it is “my one necessity” seems to be the challenge. What does it say about me that I forget something so important?

Fishing

I was recently fishing and observed the following: I don’t think too much when I’m fishing – which may or may not be a good thing as far as my fishing skills. I don’t miss anyone or anything when I’m fishing – which may or may not be a good thing as far as the rest of my life is concerned. I don’t worry about anything when I’m fishing – clearly a good thing. When I’m fishing I am fundamentally content and there is no single reason for it. It is simply an activity that perfectly synthesizes the things that are most “me” such as a deep affection for wilderness, a deep respect for things requiring patience and skill and a deep appreciation for activities that encourage a balanced cooperation between my mind and body.

Ironically I missed a lot of fish, which is such a good metaphor for my life. There I am, getting all the right guidance, not completely screwing up the cast, drift, etc…but then I get a bite and do nothing. Terrible at actually catching the fish. Yep, that’s me. “Did you see that?” he asks. “Uh, yeah” I reply dryly. Perhaps I lack conviction, or decent reflexes—or both. I can tell you this: while failing to hook the fish may be mildly embarrassing, it isn’t the least bit frustrating for me. I figure eventually I’ll get hungry enough.

On a deeper—much deeper level—I think fishing has a healing quality that I trust not to fail me. Unlike those forms of therapy that involve trusting another human being (which is particularly difficult when humans are the reason you’re hurt,) fishing can be solitary. It can be done alone and is demanding enough that I forget I’m being helped. I step out of the water feeling better than I felt when I stepped in, wondering, in spite of experience, whether everything in life might become so easy.