A Surprise

Rev. Kate Winters

If I didn’t wake up in a hotel room in Portland this morning, I would have thought I was rousing from a bad dream. But no, here I am with a large compression type bandage on my right wrist. Fortunately, writing doesn’t require any heavy lifting, at least of the physical kind.

Actually, nothing really has changed since yesterday. The heart disease I now know I have was already present…I am just newly aware of it. Aware that it is serious enough to warrant bypass surgery in the next month or so. This awareness is blessing though the fear it has elicited is not. Truth be told, and truth is my main endeavor, I do not feel fear this morning. My mind is as quiet as when the resonant bell rings to begin my meditation, but without all the necessary intention. There is a clear and open space waiting to be filled, but it is staying blessedly empty.

This is a surprise. Though perahps it should not be. I feel as if I am no longer in my own hands. It is not fully up to me to fill the seconds, the minutues, the hours ahead. My rational, fixit brain has come to a halt. My body is telling me that now I am in its realm and it is time to listen to its rhythms and needs. This is new for me.

So here I am writing, letting my body take center stage. I am grateful to my embodied self that it continues to feel this writing as a desire, almost a need. Writing has always been a physical process for me, connecting outside and inside through the dance of my fingers around the pen. There seems to be something of incarnation in this – though in reverse. Turning body into word.

Right now, my body is at peace.