Detour?

Saturday, February 18, 2023

An inch of snow fell last night, brightening the landscape. It really is too early for dirty snow season. And truth be told, I needed this small blessing.

Yesterday did not go the way I had hoped. I took a stress test at the hospital on Wednesday morning. Thursday I was called to have a meeting with a cardiologist. I should have known that something was up, but hoping for a diet and exercise routine, my optimism was quickly dashed. I am now being scheduled for a heart catheterization at Maine Med in Portland some time in the next few weeks. Apparently the test showed a few abnormalities that indicate some kind of blockage.

Now, every time Joel and I would take vacation from work, I would inevitably get sick. My body would relax and all hell would break loose. I should have expected something with the advent of our retirement. But this, this wasn’t it. I sat there while the doctor, a very young, cute, and thorough professional, explained to me the procedure, all the risks and what could be expected and thought “No. I don’t want this. This wasn’t supposed to happen.” But then I realized with my family’s history, my dad had his first heart attack in his sixties, and my mother died instantly from some kind of heart-related event, this was perhaps what needed to happen for me.

No, I wouldn’t have chosen this detour into the medical world as the first big event of retirement, but it is what it is. It certainly may be to my benefit. So now, the challenge – to continue to dwell in the present and in the presence. God isn’t any less in these moments than in the ones I would have chosen. But I find myself trying to escape them – launching myself into the future, past the worry and the fear. Or burying myself in anxiety and worry, neither of which deepens me into the present moment. All of this brings brings me away from life as it is happening right now – the golden sun coming up behind the pines, the newly fallen snow, the coffee I am enjoying in my favorite mug, the light just hitting the forest in the back yard making the hemlocks glow, the fact that I can see all of this sitting in our living room as I write. Is this not paradise?

I realize that my heart has become very real and present to me in a way it wasn’t before. I send it healing thoughts. Perhaps dwelling in the presence enhances our connections with all things around us. As well as in us.

The following is from This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley, p. 67. I highly recommend this book given to me for my birthday by Joy Longfellow. Thank you, Joy!

“I’m learning to befriend my body again. It does not always move the way I want it to, but I have made a commitment that if it ceases to move at all, if I lose all control and agency, if my hands go numb in the night and never wake again, even still I will not forsake my body. ,,,To be people capable of extending welcome to the body, even those bodies the world discards and demeans, is to be people of profound liberation. By this we will know our faith. We will stay whole.” p. 67